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DE QUINCEY'S 



Revolt of the Tartars 



OR 



FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN 



WITH INTRODUCION AND NOTES 



EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON 

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THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 

The family of De Quincey was originally noble. 
An ancestor of the opium-eater " came over to 
England with the Conqueror : " afterwards certain 
De Quinceys are found Earls of Winchester, and 
made some great or small noise in the Barons' War 
and the Crusades. But these Earls of Winchester, 
as De Quincey tells us, " suddenly came to grief ; " 
in fact, the family sank considerably in the world's 
estimation. The aristocratic prefix "De " appears 
to have been dropped, and the author's father signed 
his name, and was known among his acquaintances, 
as plain Thomas Quincey.* 

This Thomas Quincey married a Miss Elizabeth 
Penson, a lady of very good family connections. 
There were eight children by this marriage, of 
whom Thomas, the fifth child and the second son, 
was born on the 15 th of August, 1785, at Man- 
chester. At the age of six, De Quincey lost his 
elder sister, Elizabeth, to whom he was devotedly 
attached. Shortly afterwards the family removed to 

* In his boyish letters De Quincey always signs himself " Thomas 
Quincey; " the " De " appears to have been re-assumed by his mother. 



11 INTRODUCTION. 

Greenhay, a place at that time some miles distant 
from Manchester, but long since swallowed up in 
the great manufacturing city. Not long after, the 
elder Thomas Quincey died. 

The education of De Quincey, after the elemen- 
tary stage of home instruction, was entrusted to a 
private tutor. In the child's twelfth year the family 
removed to Bath, and De Quincey entered the Bath 
Grammar School. Other changes followed. In 
1798 he was sent to a private school at Winkfield 
in Wiltshire, and, at the end of 1800, to the Man- 
chester Grammar School, where he remained till 
July, 1802. 

De Quincey easily excelled in the various 
branches of knowledge imparted at school. He 
obtained a singular mastery over the Greek and 
Latin languages. He showed remarkable facility 
in the composition of Latin verse, and he tells us 
that he acquired the power of writing and speaking 
Greek with fluency. But he was not content with 
the knowledge and acquirements demanded by the 
standard of a public school education : he struck 
out a line for himself, and early became acquainted, 
amongst other things, with the literature of his own 
country, even in its byways. He was throughout 
his life a great reader. Southey, a competent judge 
on such matters, once declared him to be the best 
informed man for his years he had ever met. 

Manchester Grammar School, for more than one 



INTRODUCTION. Ill 

reason, proved unendurable to De Quincey. He 
earnestly entreated his mother and guardians .to 
remove him. His prayers were unheard ; and so, 
unable to bear the torment any more (his health 
breaking down), he took the bold course of running 
away. One evening he appeared at Chester, where 
his family had now taken up their quarters. On the 
advice of his uncle, Colonel Penson, at that time 
staying with his sister, Mrs. De Quincey, the truant 
was, as he himself desired, suffered to go on a walk- 
ing tour in Wales, and a guinea (five dollars) a 
week was allowed him to support existence as best 
he might. 

Accordingly, from July to November, De Quincey 
wandered about Wales. The guinea a week proved 
insufficient; the boy was obliged to undergo the 
severest privations, and the result was a permanent 
injury to his constitution. 

Worse still ; in an evil hour he formed the reso- 
lution to cut himself adrift from his family and 
plunge into London. Then followed greater suffer- 
ing : hunger, wanderings by night and day about the 
London streets, intense bodily pain and sickness. 

This is the period of his life (Manchester Gram- 
mar School, the Welsh wanderings, and the vaga- 
bondism in London) which is recounted in The 
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, for it was 
then that the disease, apparently hereditary, was 
aggravated to such an extent, that the only possible 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

iefuge was found in the consumption — sometimes 
in enormous quantities — of opium. 

At last an accidental encounter with a relation 
restored him for a while to his family, and, in 1803, 
he was sent to Oxford University. 

At Oxford he remained — apparently — till 1807, 
when, in the midst of his final examination, and 
with the certainty of a triumphant success before 
him, he suddenly and unaccountably left. 

At the age of twenty-one he had entered upon a 
moderate fortune, and was under no necessity of 
working for his living. Accordingly, for two years, 
he seems to have moved hither and thither as his 
fancy bade him. Sometimes he is to be found in 
London, sometimes in the Lake Country, some- 
times in Bath and the West of England. He had 
made the acquaintance of various men of letters ; 
amongst these the most conspicuous were Charles 
Lamb, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, and John 
Wilson. 

In 1809 he took' up his abode at Grasmere in 
Westmoreland, in a cottage recently vacated by 
Wordsworth. This cottage remained his home for 
twenty- one years. 

About four years afterwards, a pecuniary calamity, 
the nature of which is nowhere definitely stated, fell 
upon De Quincey. He appears to have been par- 
tially relieved by the liberality of the Colonel 
Penson already mentioned. Simultaneously, his 



INTRODUCTION. V 

constitutional malady induced him to resort to 
excessive opium-eating. It was at this time, he 
tells us, that he became a "regular and confirmed 
opium-eater." His worst experience, however, of 
the "pains of opium" was to follow some years 
later. 

In these years he seems to have visited London 
occasionally, and was once in Edinburgh, where 
the last years of his life were to be spent. Still, De 
Quincey is merely a scholar ; a student known to 
some eminent persons as a man of extensive 
information and wide reading, and as a very 
brilliant talker : to the outside world not known 
at all. 

In 1816 De Quincey married. His wife was 
Miss Margaret Simpson. She bore him eight chil- 
dren, five of whom survived him. She herself died 
in 1837. The marriage appears to have been in 
every respect a happy one — save for the opium 
spell ; for, soon afterwards, there followed an out- 
burst of opium-eating. De Quincey was utterly 
incapacitated from all work, wound round, as he 
describes it, by some " Circean spell." He was 
visited nightly by the most fearful dreams. He 
dreaded the night; for night brought sleep, and 
sleep brought the dreams. These dreams play a 
great part in De Quincey's impassioned imaginative 
writings. Especially has he described them in the 
Confessions. It is to be noticed that this is the 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

period in which occurred the incident related in 
The Vision of Sudden Death* 

Meantime necessity drove De Quincey to write. 
In 1 8 19 he obtained the editorship of the West- 
moreland Gazette, a newly established paper. After 
a year he resigned the appointment, and in 1820 
was in Edinburgh, looking for work in connection 
with the Magazines. 

But it was London, not Edinburgh, in which De 
Quincey was to make his first appearance as a liter- 
ary power of unquestioned importance. In 1821, 
in The London Magazine, there appeared The 
Confessions of an English Opium- Eater. The 
London Magazine at this time numbered among 
its contributors several who have since taken their 
places among the immortals. Month by month 
were appearing the Elia Essays of Charles Lamb. 
Keats had s^nt verses ; Hood was a sort of sub- 
editor ; and Carlyle was publishing in separate parts 
his first considerable work, The Life of Fjiedrich 
Schiller. 

The Confessions achieved an immediate success. 
Had the popularity obtained by writings of the kind 
equalled in extent the popularity of a successful 
novel of to-day, De Quincey's fortune would have 
been made. As it was, he could henceforth rely 

* In a long paper, Dr. W. C. B. Eatwell maintains that De Quincey 
cannot be called an opium-eater in the ordinary sense of the word. Opium- 
eating was no indulgence with him, but a sheer necessity 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

upon steady work from the editors of magazines. 
Accordingly from this date, almost to his death, 
each year bears with it its quota of periodical 
literature from De Quincey's pen. He wrote, as 
has been said, on almost every conceivable subject. 

At first The London Magazine received most of 
his work. Then, in 1S26, he began to contribute 
to the Edinburgh periodical, Blackwood's Magazine. 
From that time Edinburgh, and, occasionally, Glas- 
gow, gave his writings to the world ; and De 
Quincey, without a particle of Scotch blood in 
his composition, or of Scotch feeling in his heart, 
takes his place among the Scotch literati. 

In 1830 De Quincey finally severed his connection 
with the Lakes, and took up his abode permanently 
in, or in the vicinity of, Edinburgh. 

In 1837 the Revolt of the Tartars appeared in 
Blackwood, and in 1849 the English Mail Coach 
was contributed to the same magazine. Besides his 
work for Blackwood, De Quincey wrote a number of 
nrticles for Tail's Magazine, and afterwards for 
Hogg's Instructor, and contributed several biog- 
raphies to the Encyclopcedia Brittanica. 

Meanwhile, De Quincey's family was breaking 
up. His wife had died in 1837 ; of his five sons 
three were dead and the other two abroad ; two 
of his three daughters were married ; the youngest, 
Emily, lived generally either with her married sister 
in Ireland or in De Quincey's cottage at Lasswade, 



VI 11 INTRODUCTION. 

near Edinburgh. De Quincey himself, in order to 
be within convenient reach of the press, had found 
it necessary to take rooms in Edinburgh itself ; and 
he passed his time between the Lasswade cottage 
and the Edinburgh rooms. Latterly, however, he 
was compelled to live almost entirely in Edinburgh, 
and there, he died, on the eighth of January, 1859. 



INTRODUCTION. 

" Of the Kalmucks or (Elcets, brethren of like 
race with the Mongoles, several branches are in 
subjection to the Russian empire. Their original 
abode, if we may use such an expression in speak- 
ing of nomadic hordes, is the Kalmuckia, lying 
westward toward the proper Mongolia, and in the 
north and east of the lesser Bukharia. At the 
latter end of the last century, two tribes of them, 
the Torgot and Derbet, drew up in the steppe on 
the Volga above Astrakhan. Till very modern 
times, they remained, however, only as protected 
neighbors, and were tolerably independent of the 
government. But in 1757 the Vice-Khan Dondu- 
didaschi, contrary to the established custom of all 
the khans to receive their appointment from the 
Dalai-Lama in Tibet, thought fit, though they are 
of the Lama religion, to apply to Russia for the 
nomination of his son as his successor. At Peters- 
burg the request was granted with great satisfac- 
tion, which perhaps would not have been the case 
on an application to Tibet ; the father was con- 
stituted actual Khan, and the son, only 13 years 
old, without hesitation declared successor, with an 
allowance of 500 roubles/^/- annum, and installed 
with the usual solemnities. On the death of the 
father in 1761, Russia thought she had a right to 
meddle in the affairs of the young sovereign : 
instead of the accustomed council of eight sais- 
sans, it was made to consist of a larger number, 
whom the court easily retained by paying each of 



II INTRODUCTION. 

the members a salary of ioo roubles. The friendly 
protection was thus (as has happened in various 
other cases) changed into an actual sovereignty. 
In consequence of fresh regulations, the Khan lost 
his former unlimited authority, and became nothing 
more than the president of his council ; nor had he 
any longer the right to dismiss this council ; he could 
only complain to the imperial College of Russia, 
and he was taught to esteem it advantage enough 
that the sovereign tribunal stood open to his 
appeal. In all other respects these Kalmucks 
retained their religion and their manners : they 
roamed about the steppe, had an aversion to per- 
manent dwellings, and lived on the produce of 
their flocks and herds. These consisted in sheep, 
camels, and principally in horses ; the whole nation 
was armed and mounted ; and their favorite drink, 
like that of all these Tartar tribes, was a spirituous 
extract of mare's milk, called in their language 
koumish. The pasture of these horses requires 
this roving life, as a father of a family may possess 
from ioo to iooo, and some of them even 4000 
head. Many of them were in good circumstances, 
and very respectable people : kind, generous, and 
hospitable ; this last quality they possess in an 
eminent degree, and show it to every one who 
peaceably enters their tents. But they are quite 
the reverse to such as attack them as foes, especi- 
ally to nations whom they acknowledge not as 
brothers. Accordingly, Russia employed them in 
hosts in the Prussian War ; and Germany still 
recollects with horror the Asiatic savages that were 
let loose upon her, without regard to morals and 
the rights of humanity. In the Turkish War they 
likewise fought for Russia in the district of the 



INTRODUCTION. ■ III 

Kuban. Such was the situation of them till the 
year 1770. 

" In the meantime, great heart-burnings had 
long subsisted among the most considerable of 
them, on account of the innovations introduced by 
the Russians. The circumscription of their primi- 
tive liberty, their reducing their Khan to a state of 
dependence, the intermeddling of a foreign nation 
in their constitution and laws, which begot dissen- 
sions and disobedience in the horde, the injuries 
(real or imaginary) which some princes had re- 
ceived from Russian officers : all this awakened an 
irresistible hankering after their former condition ; 
and as it was not to be hoped for where they were, 
no choice was left but they must seek it in their 
ancient plains, where their ancestors knew of no 
Europeans- Just at this time the Governor of 
Astrachan appointed a lieutenant named Kischen- 
skoi, as inspector of these peaceful Kalmucks. 
Kischenskoi, a man of insatiable rapacity, by in- 
sensible degrees got possession of a great part 
of their cattle, and sold them to his own benefit. 
His exactions soon procured him an immense 
fortune. But his avarice, far from diminishing, 
seemed rather to increase with the means of its 
gratification. 

" One of their princes, a venerable old man who 
had shed his blood in the service of Russia, in 
recompense for which the Empress had given him 
her miniature portrait set round with brilliants, and 
which he wore suspended to his neck, was one day 
applied to by Kischenskoi for some presents in 
addition to those which he had already given him. 
The old man, irritated at his insolence, could not 
refrain from breaking out into reproaches on his 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

injustice and the vexations he employed to the 
ruin of the unhappy Kalmucks: Kischenskoi, 
offended at the truth of these reproaches, had the 
temerity to strike him on the face, and having at 
the same time ordered one of the saissans, the 
minister of the Khan, who interposed in his behalf, 
to be seized by his soldiers, ordered him the 
punishment of the battogues.* 

" The Kalmucks had, if not patiently, at least 
quietly, suffered the rapacity and peculations 
of the Russian officer, but they could not endure 
the insult that had been put upon this venerable 
old man, who stood in great respect among them. 
The priests and the elders of the horde having held 
a consultation, resolved to abandon the territory of 
the Russian empire, and retire to the foot of the 
mountains of Tibet, the country of their pro- 
genitors. The common people were easily per- 
suaded, especially as they were told that the 
Russian regulations were introduced for no other 
purpose than to compel them to the three things 
which they most abhorred : Christianity, agriculture, 
and the raising recruits. A little priestcraft was 
also had recourse to on this occasion. The noyons 
or princes set up a Lama, whom they raised in a 
moment to be the immortal archpriest or Dalai- 
Lama, in the following manner : — It was propa- 
gated abroad that a famous Kalmuck priest, who 
had died three years before, had now appeared 
again alive, and had issued a proclamation to the 

* A sort of punishment used in Russia for inferior offences. The 
sufferer is laid on his face upon the ground, stripped to his waist, and the 
arms and legs extended Two men, one of whom sits on his neck and the 
other on his legs, beat him alternately on the back with the battogues, 
which are rods of the thickness of the little finger. Persons having any 
authority over others could inflict this punishment upon them without any 
form of trial or legal process. Nobles and peasants were equally liable to 
it when it was ordered by superiors. 



INTRODUCTION. V 

people that he was risen from the dead at Tibet, 
in the residence of the great Dalai- Lama, of all 
which a written testimony was brought from the 
immortal high-priest, in which it was declared that, 
being now become a being of a superior order, he 
foreknew the fates and fortunes of the nation, and 
required them, in the name of their gods, to 
return, and again take possession of their ancient 
territory. This happened towards the close of the 
year 1770, just when they thought it the proper 
moment for the grand rupture ; otherwise they 
would have suffered the Lama to have slept quietly 
in his grave for a longer or a shorter time. 

" It was unpardonable neglect in the command- 
ing officer in those parts not to put a stop to the 
proceedings of the horde, so as to prevent the 
emigration, as their intention was publicly known 
in those parts. He even suffered himself to be 
duped by the Kalmucks, to whom, on their forging 
some pretext of apprehension from the Kirghises, 
their neighbors, he gave two pieces of cannon, 
with ammunition, and some engineers. Accord- 
ingly, in the autumn, they began their march : a 
prodigious troop, with wives, children, and ser- 
vants, having their droves, horses, flocks, goods, huts, 
and tents. The Captain, under the command of 
the Khan, was forced to migrate with them at the 
head of his Kozaks. The march was conducted 
regularly enough, in three troops, who constantly 
kept in sight ; the flanks of each were particularly 
covered, and besides this they had a van and a 
rear-guard. At the beginning they plundered the 
fisheries and the trading houses on the borders of 
the Volga and the Caspian, but, on the progress 
into the Southern Siberia, they came upon the 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

Kozaks of the Yaik, who stopped and pursued the 
flying horde, cut thousands of them to pieces, and 
forced thousands to return. In the spring, 1771, 
they were attacked by the Kirghises, their in- 
veterate enemies, who, after a bloody engagement, 
took many of them prisoners. In the summer 
they proceeded through the ancient Mongolia 
to the Chinese borders, where an army of the 
Mandshu* received them, and afforded them 
protection. 

" The secret of their flight was so well kept that 
it was not known to the Russians till two days after 
their departure. Three regiments were sent in 
pursuit of them, to no purpose. The Kalmucks 
were more in haste than they; and, besides, they 
were two days before them. These regiments 
wandered a long time in the deserts, and a consid- 
erable part of the soldiers perished. 

" When the news of the emigration was brought 
to St. Petersburg, a corps of troops were ordered 
by the Court to go in quest of them. But, if the 
former pursuits were too late, it was not likely that 
these should come up with them : the lamentable 
particulars of this expedition may be read in 
Captain Rytschkoff's journal, where it may be seen 
what difficulties and hardships these indefatigable 
pursuers of the fugitive horde encountered in their 
devious marches on this unavailing expedition, and 
what variety of distresses they suffered in the 
dreary, inhospitable regions and waterless deserts 
through which they passed. At length nothing 
farther was to be done but to make application by 
a written memorial to China, to demand the resti- 
tution of the runaways. But the Supreme Tribunal 

* The then Emperor of China. 



INTRODUCTION. VII 

of Pekin answered the rescript of the Russian 
Senate abruptly, in a scornful and derisory manner, 
and concluded by saying that ' Their sovereign was 
not a prince so unjust as to deliver up his 
subjects to foreigners, nor so cruel a father as to 
drive away children who returned to the bosom of 
their family. That he had no intimation of the 
design of the Kalmucks till the moment of their 
arrival ; and that then, without delay, he caused to 
be restored to them the habitations that had be- 
longed to them from time immemorial. That, in 
short, the Empress had no reason to complain of 
the Kalmucks, but certainly of the officer who had 
dared to lift his hand against a servant of the 
Kahn's, and to order their ministers to undergo the 
battogues.' The latter was thus subscribed : — * In 
the 36th year, the 7th month, and the 13th day of 
the reign of Kien Long.' On various occasions 
Catharine frequently received from these, her 
neighbors, answers in a style which must have 
struck her the more sensibly as she was accustomed 
to hear from all the other monarchs in the world 
a very different language. On her applying for 
a fresh treaty for the renewal of the commerce 
with China by the caravans, which for several 
years had been interrupted on account of 
some differences that had arisen between the sub- 
jects of the two potentates, the answer given to 
her envoy was : — Let your mistress learn to keep 
old treaties, and then it will be time enough to 
apply for new ones.' Accordingly, we see from 
her private communicationsf how sensitive she was 
upon this subject; and she could scarcely endure 
to hear any praise, even jestingly, bestowed on the 

I For example, in her correspondence with Voltaire. 



VIII INTRODUCTION. 

Emperor of China, who was otherwise known as an 
author and poet. 

" Concerning the number of persons lost to 
Russia by this emigration, accounts do not agree. 
Some state it at 130,000 families, which is certainly 
exaggerated. More accurate statements say that 
the horde in general consisted of not much above 
70,000 tents or hearths of families. Those who 
voluntarily returned (for doubtless many of them, 
on the fatiguing and painful expedition over the 
deserts, panted after the more quiet abode on the 
Volga, and turned back) and those who were 
brought in by the Kozaks^are reckoned together at 
12,342 tents. Those that escaped, therefore, esti- 
mating them at the highest, were 60,000 hearths. 
But how great the number of the individuals that 
died upon the road and of those who were carried 
into captivity by the Kirghises can never be 
known. 

" A council of war was held to examine into the 
conduct of Lieutenant-Colonel Kischenskoi, and to 
pronounce upon it. But the business was con- 
ducted with negligence and every possible delay. 
Kischenskoi employed a part of the fruit of his 
rapine in procuring himself friends at Court or in 
corrupting his judges ; and to the great scandal of 
the majority of the Russians, this man, who had 
occasioned the loss of such a number of subjects 
to the country, was recompensed by the title of 
Colonel." — Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS: 

OR, 
FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCK KHAN AND • HIS 

PEOPLE FROM THE RUSSIAN TERRITORIES 

TO THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA. 



There is no great event in modern history, 
or, perhaps it may be said more broadly, 
none in all history, from its earliest records, 
less generally known, or more striking to the 
imagination, than the flight eastwards of a 5 
principal Tartar nation across the boundless 
steppes of Asia, in the latter half of the last 
century. The terminus a quo of this flight, 
and the terminus ad quern, are equally mag- 
nificent ; the mightiest of Christian thrones 10 
being the one, the mightiest of Pagan the 
other. And the grandeur of these two ter- 
minal objects is harmoniously supported by 
the romantic circumstances of the flight. In 

7. steppes, vast flat plains, prairies. 

8. terminus a quo, starting point. 

9. terminus ad quern, goal. 

10. thrones, i.e., the Russian. 

11. mightiest of Pagan, the Chinese. 



6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

is the abruptness of its commencement, and the 
fierce velocity of its execution, we read the 
wild barbaric character of those who con- 
ducted the movement. In the unity of pur- 
pose connecting this myriad of wills, and in 

20 the blind but unerring aim at a mark so re- 
mote, there is something which recalls to the 
mind those almighty instincts that propel the 
migrations of the swallow and the lemming, or 
the life-withering marches of the locust. Then 

25 again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia and 
her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear 
and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are 
reminded of Miltonic images — such, for in- 
stance, as that of the solitary hand pursuing 

30 through desert spaces and through ancient 
chaos a rebellious host, and overtaking with 
volleying thunders those who believed them- 
selves already within the security of darkness 
and of distance. 

35 I shall have occasion, farther on, to compare 
this event with other great national catastrophes 
as to the magnitude of the suffering. But it 
may also challenge a comparison with similar 
events under another relation, viz., as to its 

40 dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in 

20. a mark so remote, as that of China. 

23. lemming, a migratory animal of the rat kind. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 7 

romance or history, can sustain a close colla- 
tion with this as to the complexity of its 
separate interests. The great outline of the 
enterprise, taken in connection with the oper- 
ative motives, hidden or avowed, and the 45 
religious sanctions under which it was pur- 
sued, give to the case a triple character: — 
First, that of a conspiracy, with as close a unity 
in the incidents and as much of a personal 
interest in the moving characters, with fine 50 
dramatic contrasts, as belongs to Venice Pre- 
served, or to the Fiesco of Schiller : secondly, 
that of a great military expedition, offering the 
same romantic features of vast distances to 
be traversed, vast reverses to be sustained, 55 
untried routes, enemies obscurely ascertained, 
and hardships too vaguely prefigured, which 
mark the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses 
— which mark the anabasis of the younger 
Cyrus, and the subsequent retreat of the ten eo 

51-52. "Venice Preserved." A tragedy by Otway (1651-1685); 
"his last and greatest dramatic work," published in 1682; "Fiesco." 
This tragedy, by Schiller — the great German dramatist, — was published 
in 1783. 

58. the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses. Cambyses, King of 
Persia, was the son of Cyrus the Great, whom he succeeded, 529 b c. He 
conquered the Egyptians, destroyed their god Apis, and plundered their 
temples Cambyses afterwards sent an army of 50,000 men to destroy the 
temple of Jupiter Amnion, but they were lost in the deserts of Libya 

59 anabasis, " a going up," march up. Xenophon, who was the 
chief leader of the " retreat " or katabasis, " going down," wrote a work 
calied the "Anabasis," giving an account of the expedition of the younger 
Cyrus against his brother Artaxerxes. 



8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

thousand — which mark the Parthian expedi- 
tions of the Romans, especially those of 
Crassus and Julian — or (as more disastrous 
than any of them, and, in point of space as 

65 well as in amount of forces, more extensive) 
the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napo- 
leon ; thirdly, that of a religious Exodus, 
authorized by an oracle venerated throughout 
many nations of Asia — an Exodus, therefore, 

70 in so far resembling the great Scriptural 
Exodus of the Israelites, under Moses and 
Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar distinc- 
tion of carrying along with them their entire 
families, women, children, slaves, their herds 

61-62. the Parthian expeditions, etc. Parthia, the modern Khoras- 
san, is a country of Asia to the southeast of the Caspian Sea. The Parthians 
were a very warlike people, and were especially celebrated as horse- 
archers. Their tactics became so celebrated as to pass i' to a proverb. 
Their mail-clad horsemen spread like a cloud round the hostile army, and 
poured in a shower of darts, and then evaded any closer conflict by a rapid 
flight, during which they still shot their arrows backward at the enemy. 

63 Crassus — surnamed " Dives" on account of his notorious " greed 
of gold" — was Consul in 55 B.C., and had Syria assigned to him as his 
province. He led an expedition against the Parthians, and was defeated 
by them in the plains of Mesopotamia, near Carrhae, the Haran of Scrip- 
ture. He was shortly afterwards slain at an interview with the Parthian 
General. 

63. Julian — surnamed the " Apostate " — was Emperor of Rome from 
a.d. 361-363; his brief reign was chiefly occupied by his military prepara- 
tions against the Persians (the Parthi at this time forming a part of the 
Persian empire). In 363 he crossed the Tigris, and marched into the 
interior of the country in search of the Persian king, but was obliged to 
retreat in consequence of the sufferings of his army from want of water 
and provisions. In his retreat he was attacked by the Persians and slain 
in battle 

66. the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon, Napoleon's 
well-known march into {anabasis) and retreat from {katabasis) Russia 
(1812). 

68. an oracle, the Dalai-Lama of Tibet is here referred to. 

70-71. Scriptural Exodus of the Israelites, see Exodus, ch. xii. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 9 

of cattle and of sheep, their horses and their 75 
camels. 

This triple character of the enterprise natu- 
rally invests it with a more comprehensive 
interest. But the dramatic interest which I 
have ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage so 
representation, depends partly upon the marked 
variety and the strength of the personal 
agencies concerned, and partly upon the suc- 
cession of scenical situations. Even the 
steppes, the camels, the tents, the snowy and 86 
the sandy deserts, are not beyond the scale of 
our modern representative powers, as often 
called into action in the theatres both of 
Paris and London ; and the series of situations 
unfolded, beginning with the general con- 90 
flagration on the Wolga — passing thence to 
the disastrous scenes of the flight (as it lit- 
erally was in its commencement) — to the 
Tartar siege of the Russian fortress Koulagina 
— the bloody engagement with the Cossacks ^ 
in the mountain passes at Ouchim — the sur- 
prisal by the Bashkirs and the advanced posts 
of the Russian Army at Torgau — the private 
conspiracy at this point against the Khan — 

89- 12. These lines contain a summary of the " Revolt of the Tartars." 

95. Cossacks A mixed race, famous for their horsemanship, inhabit- 
ing the southeastern part of Russia; since 1654 subject to Russia, and fur- 
nishing light cavalry for its army. 



IO REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

100 the long succession of running fights — the 
parting massacres at the Lake of Tengis under 
the eyes of the Chinese — and, finally, the 
tragical retribution to Zebek-Dorchi at the 
hunting lodge of the Chinese Emperor; — all 

105 these situations communicate a sceuical anima- 
tion to the wild romance, if treated dramati- 
cally, whilst a higher and a philosophic interest 
belongs to it as a case of authentic history, 
commemorating a great revolution for good 

no and for evil, in the fortunes of a whole people 
— a people semi-barbarous, but simple-hearted, 
and of ancient descent. 



On the 2 1st of January, 1761, the young 
Prince Oubacha assumed the" sceptre of the 

115 Kalmucks upon the death of his father. Some 
part of the power attached to this dignity he 
had already wielded since his fourteenth year, 
in quality of Vice-Khan, by the express 
appointment and with the avowed support of 

120 the Russian Government. He was now about 
eighteen years of age, amiable in his personal 
character, not without titles to respect in his 
public character as a sovereign prince. In 
times more peacable, and amongst "a people} 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. II 

more entirely civilized, or more humanized by 125 
religion, it is even probable that he might 
have discharged his high duties with consider- 
able distinction. But his lot was thrown upon 
stormy times, and a most difficult crisis 
amongst tribes, whose native ferocity was i 30 
exasperated by debasing forms of superstition, 
and by a national as well as an inflated conceit 
of their own merit, absolutely unparalelled, 
whilst the circumstances of their hard and 
trying position under the jealous surveillance 135 
of an irresistible lord paramount, in the person 
of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to the 
natural unamiableness of the Kalmuck dis- 
position, and irritated its gloomier qualities 
into action under the restless impulses of sus- 140 
picion and permanent distrust. No prince 
could hope for a cordial allegiance from his 
subjects, or a peaceful reign, under the cir- 
cumstances of the case, for the . dilemma in 
which a Kalmuck ruler stood at present was of i« 
this nature: wanting the sanction and support 

jof the Czar, he was inevitably too weak from 
without to command confidence from his sub- 
jects, or resistance to his competitors; on the 

/ other hand, with this kind of support, and 150 
deriving his title in any degree from the favor 
of the Imperial Court, he became almost in 



12 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

that extent an object of hatred at home, and 
within the whole compass of his own territory. 

155 He was at once an object of hatred for the 
past, being a living monument of national 
independence ignominiously surrendered, and 
an object of jealousy for the future, as one 
who had already advertised himself to be a 

160 fitting tool for the ultimate purposes (whatso- 
ever those might prove to be) of the Russian 
Court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck 
sceptre under the heaviest weight of prejudice 
from the unfortunate circumstances of his 

165 position, it might have been expected that 
Oubacha would have been pre-eminently an 
object of detestation ; for, besides his known 
dependence upon the Cabinet of St. Peters- 
burg, the direct line of succession had been 

no set aside, and the principle of inheritance 
violently suspended, in favor of his own 
father, so recently as nineteen years before the 
era of his own accession, consequently within 
the lively remembrance of the existing gen- 

176 eration. He, therefore, almost equally with 
his father, stood within the full current of the 
national prejudices, and might have anticipated 
the most pointed hostility. But it was not so : 
such are the caprices in human affairs, that he 

i8o was even, in a moderate sense, popular — 2 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. I 3 

benefit which wore the more cheering aspect 
and the promises of permanence, inasmuch as 
he owed it exclusively to his personal qualities 
of kindness and affability, as well as to the 
beneficence of his government. On the other 185 
hand, to balance this unlooked-for prosperity 
at the outset of his reign, he met with a rival 
in popular favor — almost a competitor — in 
the person of Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with 
considerable pretensions to the throne, and 190 
perhaps, it might be said, with equal pre- 
tensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant 
of the same royal house as himself, through a 
different branch. On public grounds, his 
claim stood, perhaps, on a footing equally^ 
good with that of Oubacha, whilst his personal 
qualities, even in those aspects which seemed 
to a philosophical observer most odious and 
repulsive, promised the most effectual aid to 
the dark purposes of an intriguer or a con- 200 
spirator, and were generally fitted to win a 
bopular support precisely in those points 
where Oubacha was most defective. He was 
"much superior in external appearance to his 
j^ival on the throne, and so far better qualified 205 
to win the good opinion of a semi-barbarous 
people; whilst his dark intellectual qualities 



14 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

of Machiavellian dissimulation, profound 
hypocrisy, and perfidy which knew no touch of 

210 remorse, were admirably calculated to sustain 
any ground which he might win from the 
simple-hearted people with whom he had to 
deal — and from the frank carelessness of his 
unconscious competitor. 

215 At the very outset of his treacherous 
career, Zebek-Dorchi was sagacious enough to 
perceive that nothing could be gained by open 
declaration of hostility to the reigning prince:] 
the choice had been a deliberate act on the 

220 part of Russia, and Elizabeth Petrowna wasl 
not the person to recall her own favors witn 
levity, or upon slight grounds. Openly 
therefore, to have declared his enmity toward: 
his relative on the throne, could have had n< 

225 effect but that of arming suspicions against hi 
own ulterior purposes in a quarter where i| 
was most essential to his interest that, for th 

208 Machiavellian. Nicholas Machiavelli was a celebrated Italij 
politician and writer. He was born at Florence in 1469 and died there 
1527. For his life any biographical dictionary may be consulted. H 
wrote several works, — airnng them one called " The Prince," which co 1 } 
tains, as some think, the most pernicious maxims of government, found I 
on the vilest principles. The general scope of the books is to show thj 
rulers may resort to any treachery and artifice to uphold their arbitra j 
power. Machiavelli's name ha- passed into a proverb for everything th 
is base, and mean, and treacherous in diplomacy. 

220 Elizabeth Petrowna (or Petrovna), Elizabeth, daughter 
Peter the Great She was born in 1709, and usurped the throne in 174 
she died in 1762. 

226. in a quarter, at the Court of Russia. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS.- 1 5 

present, all suspicion should be hoodwinked. 
Accordingly, after much meditation, the 
course he took for opening his snares was 230 
this : — He raised a rumor that his own life 
was in danger from the plots of several 
Saissang (that is, Kalmuck nobles), who were 
leagued together, under an oath, to assassinate 
him ; and immediately after, assuming a well- 235 
counterfeited alarm, he fled to Tcherkask, 
followed by sixty-five tents. From this place 
he kept up a correspondence with the Im- 
perial Court, and, by way of soliciting his 
cause more effectually, he soon repaired in 240 
person to St. Petersburg. Once admitted to 
personal conferences with the Cabinet, he 
found no difficulty in winning over the Russian 
councils to a concurrence with some of his 
political views, and thus covertly introducing 245 
the point of that wedge which was finally to 
accomplish his purposes. In particular, he 
persuaded the Russian Government to make a 
very important alteration in the constitution of 
ithe Kalmuck State Council, which in effect 250 
Reorganized the whole political condition of 
:he State, and disturbed, the balance of power 
is previously adjusted. Of this Council — in 

237 sixty-five tents. Reckoning about five people to a tent, this 
vould mean " about three hundred people." 



1 6 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

the Kalmuck language called Sarga — there 

255 were eight members, called Sargatchi, and 
hitherto it had been the custom that these 
eight members should be entirely subordinate 
to the Khan ; holding, in fact, the ministerial 
character of secretaries and assistants, but in 

260 no respect acting as co-ordinate authorities. 
That had produced some inconveniences in 
former reigns, and it was easy for Zebek- 
Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Russian 
Court to others more serious, which might 

265 arise in future circumstances of war or other 
contingencies. It was resolved, therefore, to 
place the Sargatchi henceforwards on a footing 
of perfect independence, and therefore (as i 
regarded responsibility) on a footing of 

270 equality with the Khan. Their independence,! 
however, had respect only to their ownj 
sovereign ; for towards Russia they were! 
placed in a new attitude of direct duty and! 
accountability, by the creation in their favoifj 

275 of small pensions (300 roubles a year)); 
which, however, to a Kalmuck of that day 
were more considerable than might b 
supposed, and had a farther value as marks o 
honorary distinction emanating from a grea 

275. roubles. A "rouble" (a Russian silver coin) is worth about 
seventy-five cents. il 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 1 7 

Empress. Thus far the purposes of Zebek- 280 
Dorchi were served effectually for the 
moment : but, apparently, it was only for the 
moment, since, in the further development of 
his plots, this very dependency upon Russian 
influence would be the most serious obstacle 285 
in his way. There was, however, another 
point carried which outweighed all inferior 
considerations, as it gave him a power of 
setting aside discretionally whatsoever should 
arise to disturb his plots : he was himself 290 
appointed President and Controller of the 
Sargatchi. The Russian Court had been 
aware of his high pretensions by birth, and 
hoped by this promotion to satisfy the 
ambition which, in some degree, was ac- 295 

) knowledged to be a reasonable passion for any 
man occupying his situation. 

\ Having thus completely blindfolded the 
Cabinet of Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded 
,in his new character to fulfil his political mis- 300 
v >ion with the Khan of the Kalmucks. So 
^artfully did he prepare the road for his favor- 
able reception at the Court of this prince, that 
l^ie was at once and universally welcomed as a 
benefactor. The pensions of the counsellors 305 
were so much additional wealth poured into 



1 8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

the Tartar exchequer; as to the ties of de- 
pendency thus created, experience had not 
yet enlightened these simple tribes as to that 

310 result. And that he himself should be the 
chief of these mercenary councillors, was so 
far from being charged upon Zebek as any 
offence or any ground of suspicion, that his 
relative the Khan returned him hearty thanks 

315 for his services, under the belief that he could 
have accepted this appointment only with a 
view to keep out other and more unwelcome 
pretenders, who would not have had the same 
motives of consanguinity or friendship for 

320 executing its duties in a spirit of kindness to 
the Kalmucks. The first use which he made 
of his new functions about the Khan's person, 
was to attack the Court of Russia, by a roman-i 
tic villainy not easy to be credited, for those, 1 

325 very acts of interference with the Council/ 
which he himself had prompted. This was al 
dangerous step, but it was indispensable to hijj 
further advance upon the gloomy path whicl 

he had traced out for himself. A triple venfla 

. ff olt 

330 geance was what he meditated : — First, upoi|j 

the Russian Cabinet for having undervalued m 

° FOB] 

his own pretensions to the throne ; second 
upon his amiable rival for having supplantec 

k 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 1 9 

him ; and third, upon all those of the nobility 
who had manifested their sense of his weak- 335 
ness by their neglect, or their sense of his 
perfidious character by their suspicions. Here 
was a colossal outline of wickedness ; and by 
one in his situation, feeble (as it might seem) 
for the accomplishment of its humblest parts, 34 o 
how was the total edifice to be reared in its 
comprehensive grandeur? He, a worm as he 
was, could he venture to assail the mighty 
behemoth of Muscovy, the potentate who 
counted three hundred languages around the 345 
footsteps of his throne, and from whose '* lion- 
ramp'' recoiled alike " baptized and' infidel "— 
Christendom on the one side, strong by her in 

Eellect and her organization, and the " Barbaric 
Last" on the other, with her unnumbered 3 60 
1 lumbers? The match was a monstrous one ; 
>ut in its very monstrosity there lay this germ 
)f encouragement, that it could not be sus- 
>ected. The very hopelessness of the scheme 



344. behemoth of Moscovy, empire of Russia. The name " behe- 
Joth " is used in the Bible {yob xl. 15) either for the elephant or the 
ppopotamus. It now signifies any huge beast. " Muscovy," Russia. 

Ri 



■':■ 



)p u |ormerly Moscow and the adjacent country alone constituted Russia. 

346-347. " lion ramp," lion-like spring or bound The phrase is' taken 
om Milton's " Samson Agonistes," line 139: — 

" The bold Ascalonite 
Fled from his lion ramp." 



i 



347. " baptized and infidel," Christian and Pagan, See Milton, 
Paradise Lost," i. 583, 



20 REVOTT OF THE TARTARS. 

355 grounded his hope, and he resolved to execute 
a vengeance which would involve, as it were, 
in the unity of a well-laid tragic fable, all 
whom he judged to be his enemies. That 
vengeance lay in detaching from the Russian 

360 Empire the whole Kalmuck nation, and break- 
ing up that system of intercourse which had 
thus far been beneficial to both. This last 
was a consideration which moved him but 
little. True it was, that Russia to the Kal- 

365 mucks had secured lands and extensive pas- 
turage ; true it was that the Kalmucks reci- 
procally to Russia had furnished a powerful 
cavalry. But the latter loss would be part of 
his triumph, and the former might be more 

3 7 o than compensated in other climates under 
other sovereigns. Here was a scheme which, 
in its final accomplishment, would avenge him 
bitterly on the Czarina, and in the course of 
its accomplishment might furnish him with 

375 ample occasion for removing his other enemies- 
It may be readily supposed, indeed, that h- 
who could deliberately raise his eyes to th- 
Russian autocrat as an antagonist in singl- 
duel with himself, was not likely to feel much 

380 anxiety about Kalmuck enemies of whateye" 
rank. He took his resolution, therefore, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 21 

sternly and irrevocably, to effect this astonish- 
ing translation of an ancient people across the 
pathless deserts of Central Asia, intersected 
continually by rapid rivers, rarely furnished 385 
with bridges, and of which the fords were 
known only to those who might think it for 
their interest to conceal them, through many 
nations, inhospitable or hostile ; frost and 
snow around them (from the necessity of 390 
commencing their flight in winter), famine in 
their front, and the sabre, or even the artillery 
of an offended and mighty Empress, hanging 
upon their rear for thousands of miles. But 
what was to be their final mark — the port of 395 
shelter after so fearful a course of wandering? 
Two things were evident : it must be some 
power at a great distance from Russia, so as 
to make return even in that view hopeless ; 
and it must be a power of sufficient rank to 400 
insure them protection from any hostile efforts 
on the part of the Czarina for reclaiming them, 
or for chastising their revolt. Both conditions 
were united obviously in the person of Kien 
Long, the reigning Emperor of China, who 405 
was further recommended to them by his 
respect for the head of their religion. To 
China, therefore, and, as their first rendezvous, 



2 2 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

to the shadow of the great Chinese wall, it was 

4io settled by Zebek that they should direct their 
flight. 

Next eame the question of time. When 
should the flight commence? and, finally, the 
more delicate question as to the choice of 

415 accomplices. To extend the knowledge of the 
conspiracy too far was to insure its betrayal to 
the Russian Government. Yet at some stage f 
of the preparations it was evident that a very I 
extensive confidence must be made, because I 

420 in no other way could the mass of the Kal- / 
muck population be persuaded to furnish their / 
families with the requisite equipments for so/ 
long a migration. This critical step, however,! 
it was resolved to defer up to the latest pos-f 

425 sible moment, and, at all events, to make ncj' 
general communication on the subject until! 
the time of departure should be definitel))' 
settled. In the meantime, Zebek admitte 

409. the Great Chinese Wall. The most stupendous of all the publ* 
undertakings of China is tha. known by the name of the Great Wall. Thj is 
mighty rampart has been drawn along the whole northern, and part of tr; 1 ^ 
western frontier, over a vast chain of mountains, the sinuosities of whv" 
it follows throughout a course of about 1400 miles. On the plain it j ls 
thirty feet high, but when carried over rocks, fifteen or twenty feet ai| e 
found a sufficient height. The tlnckness of the whole wall at the base I s 
twenty-five feet, diminishing to twenty and fifteen feet at the platform, if 
is defended by towers placed at given distances, forty feet square at the basF 
and nearly the same in height. This immense work was built about twi^ 
hundred years before the Christian era, as a defence against the wandering 
tribes of Tartars who have inhabited the wild country beyond it from tirm- 
immemorial. It is constructed of earth or rubbish cased on each side by 
brick-work. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 23 

only three persons into his confidence, of 
whom Oubacha, the reigning prince, was al- «o 
most necessarily one; but him, from his yield- 
ing and somewhat feeble character, he viewed 
rather in the light of a tool than as one of his 
active accomplices. Those whom (if any- 
body) he admitted to an unreserved partici- 435 
pation in his councils were two only, the great 
Lama among the Kalmucks and his own 
father-in-law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some 
tribe in the neighborhood of the Caspian sea, 
recommended to his favor not so much by any 440 
strength of talent corresponding to the occa- 
sion as by his blind devotion to himself and 
his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation 
of his daughter and his son-in-law to the 
throne of a sovereign prince. A titular 445 
prince Zebek already was : but this dignity, 
without the substantial accompaniment of a 
sceptre, seemed but an empty sound to both 
of these ambitious rebels. The other accom- 
plice, whose name was Loosan-Dchaltzan, and 450 
\£hose rank was that of Lama or Kalmuck 
jjOntiff, was a person of far more distinguished 
pretensions ; he had something of the same 
gloomy and terrific pride which marked the 
character of Zebek himself, manifesting also 455 



24 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

the same energy, accompanied by the same 
unfaltering cruelty, and a natural facility of 
dissimulation even more profound. It was by 
this man that the other question was settled, 

460 as to the time for giving effect to their designs. 
His own pontifical character had suggested to 
him that, in order to strengthen their influence 
with the vast mob of simple-minded men 
whom they were to lead into a howling 

465 wilderness, after persuading them to lay deso- 
late their own ancient hearths, it was indis- 
pensable that they should be able, in cases 
of extremity, to plead the express sanction of 
God for their entire enterprise. This could 

470 only be done by addressing themselves to the 
great head of their religion, the Dalai-Lama of 
Tibet. Him they easily persuaded to coun- 
tenance their schemes, and an oracle was 
delivered solemnly at Tibet, to the effect that 

475 no ultimate prosperity would attend this great 
Exodus unless it were pursued through the 

471 "Lama" is a Thibetan word meaning priest. Lamaism is t'£ 
prevailing religion of Thibet and other parts of Asia. It is an offshoot : ." 
Buddhism (the prevailing religion of China), which it very mu lf 
resembles. The Dalai-Lama, or chief of this religion, is the successes 
or rather a pretended incarnation of Buddha. '' s 

477. the years of the tiger and the hare. The order of the years 
was:— The year of ■, 1) the mouse, (2) the bull, (3) the tiger or leoparc, 
(4) the hare, 5 the crocodile, (6) the snake, (7 the horse, (8 the ran, 
(9) the monkey, (10) the cock, (n) the dog, (12 the hog. The Persiar.s 
have the same cycle of twelve years, which they would seem to hav: 
adopted from the Tartars. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 25 

years of the tiger and the hare. Now, the 
Kalmuck custom is to distinguish their years 
by attaching to each a denomination taken 
from one of twelve animals, the exact order 4so 
of succession being absolutely fixed, so that 
the cycle revolves of course through a period 
of a dozen years. Consequently, if the ap- 
proaching year of the tiger were suffered to 
escape them, in that case the expedition must 485 
be delayed for twelve years more, within 
which period, even were no other unfavorable 
changes to arise, it was pretty well foreseen 
that the Russian Government would take the 
most effectual means for bridling their vagrant 490 
propensities by a ring fence of forts or military 
posts, to say nothing of the still readier plan 
for securing their fidelity (a plan already 
talked of in all quarters), by exacting a large 
body of hostages selected from the families of 495 
the most influential nobles. On these cogent 
considerations it was solemnly determined that 
this terrific experiment should be made in the 
next year of the tiger, which happened to fall 
upon the Christian year 1 77 1 . With respect 500 
to the month, there was, unhappily for the 
Kalmucks, even less latitude allowed to their 
choice than with respect to the year. It was 



26 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

absolutely necessary, or it was thought so, that 

505 the different divisions of the nation which 
pastured their flocks on both banks of the 
Wolga should have the means of effecting an 
instantaneous junction, because the danger of 
being intercepted by flying columns of the 

510 imperial armies was precisely the greatest at 
the outset. Now, from the want of bridges or 
sufficient river craft for transporting so vast a 
body of men, the sole means which could be 
depended upon (especially where so many 

515 women, children, and camels were concerned), 
was ice : and this, in a state of sufficient firm- 
ness, could not be absolutely counted upon 
before the month of January. Hence it hap- 
pened that this astonishing Exodus of a whole 

520 nation, before so much as a whisper of the 
design had begun to circulate amongst those 
whom it most interested, before it was even 
suspected that any man's wishes pointed in 
that direction, had been definitely appointed 

525 for January of the year 1 77 1. And almost 
up to the Christmas of 1770, the poor simple 
Kalmuck herdsmen and their families were 
going nightly to their peaceful beds, without 
even dreaming that the fiat had already 

530 gone forth from their rulers which consigned 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 27 

those quiet abodes, together with the peace 
and comfort which reigned within them, 
to a withering desolation, now close at 
hand. 

Meantime war raged on a great scale 535 
between Russia and the Sultan ; and until the 
time arrived for throwing off their vassalage, 
it was necessary that Oubacha should con- 
tribute his usual contingent of martial aid. 
Nay, it had unfortunately become prudent^ 
that he should contribute much more than his 
usual aid. Human experience gives ample 
evidence that in some mysterious and unac- 
countable way no great design is ever agitated, 
no matter how few or how faithful may be the 545 
participators, but that some presentiment — 
some dim misgiving — is kindled amongst 
those whom it is chiefly important to blind. 
And, however it might have happened, certain 
it is, that already, when as yet no syllable of sso 
the conspiracy had been breathed to any man 
whose very existence was not staked upon its 
concealment, nevertheless, some vague and 
uneasy jealousy had arisen in the Russian 



535~536 war . . . between Russia and the Sultan. " The Sultan, 
Mustafa III., was opposed to intervention in Poland, but his hand was 
forced by a rising in Constantinople, and he declared war against Russia 
in October, 1768." 



2 8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

655 Cabinet as to the future schemes of the 
Kalmuck Khan : and very probable it is that, 
but for the war then raging, and the con- 
sequent prudence of conciliating a very- 
important vassal, or, at least, of abstaining from 

560 what would powerfully alienate him, even at 
that moment such measures would have been 
adopted as must for ever have intercepted the 
Kalmuck schemes. Slight as were the jealous- 
ies of the Imperial Court, they had not 

5 6 5 escaped the Machiavellian eyes cf Zebek and 
the Lama. And under their guidance, 
Oubacha, bending to the circumstances of the 
moment, and meeting the jealousy of the 
Russian Court with a policy corresponding to 

570 their own, strove by unusual zeal to efface the 
Czarina's unfavorable impressions. He en- 
larged the scale of his contributions, and 
that so prodigiously that he absolutely car- 
ried to headquarters a force of 35,000 cav- 

575 airy fully equipped ; some go further, and 
rate the amount beyond 40,000, but the 
smaller estimate is, at all events, within the 
truth. 

With this magnificent array of cavalry, 

580 heavy as well as light, the Khan went into the 
field under great expectations : and these he 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 29 

more than realized. Having the good fortune 
to be concerned with so ill-organized and 
disorderly a description of force as that which 
at all times composed the bulk of a Turkish 585 
army, he carried victory along with his 
banners, gained many partial successes, and at 
last, in a pitched battle overthrew the Turkish 
force opposed to him with a loss of 5000 men 
left upon the field. 590 

These splendid achievements seemed likely 
to operate in various ways against the im- 
pending revolt. Oubacha had now a strong 
motive, in the martial glory acquired, for 
continuing his connection with the empire in 595 
whose service he had won it, and by whom 
only it could be fully appreciated. He was 
now a great marshal of a great empire, one of 
the Paladins around the imperial throne ; in 
China he would be nobody, or (worse than soo 
that) a mendicant alien, prostrate at the feet 
and soliciting the precarious alms of a prince 
with whom he had no connection. Besides, 
it might reasonably be expected that the 
Czarina, grateful for the really efficient aid 605 
given by the Tartar prince, would confer upon 

599. Paladins, distinguished champions or knights Originally the 
word meant "officers of the Palatium or Byzantine palace,— a high 
dignitary. 



30 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

him such eminent rewards as might be suf- 
ficient to anchor his hopes upon Russia, and 
to wean him from every possible seduction. 

6io These were the obvious suggestions of pru- 
dence and good sense to every man that stood 
neutral in the case. But they were disap- 
pointed. The Czarina knew her obligations 
to the Khan, but she did not acknowledge 

6i5 them. Wherefore? That is a mystery, per- 
haps never to be explained. So it was, 
however. The Khan went unhonored ; no 
ukase ever proclaimed his merits ; and per- 
haps, had he even been abundantly recom- 

620 pensed by Russia, there were others who 
would have defeated these tendencies to re- 
conciliation. Erempel, Zebek and Loosang 
the Lama, were pledged life-deep to prevent 
any accommodation ; and their efforts were 

625 unfortunately seconded by those of their 
deadliest enemies. In the Russian Court there 
were at that time some great nobles preoccu- 
pied with feelings of hatred and blind malice 
towards the Kalmucks, quite as strong as any 

630 which the Kalmucks could harbor towards 
Russia, and not perhaps, so well founded. 



618. ukase, a Russian term for an edict either proceeding from the 
- Senate or direct from the Emperor; from the Russian ukasat, to speak* 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 3 1 

Just as much as the Kalmucks hated the 
Russian yoke, their galling assumption of 
authority, the marked air of disdain, as 
towards a nation of ugly, stupid, and filthy &* 
barbarians, which too generally marked the 
Russian bearing and language, but, above all, 
the insolent contempt, or even outrages, which 
the Russian governors or great military com- 
mandants tolerated in their followers towards 640 
the barbarous religion and superstitious 
mummeries of the Kalmuck priesthood — 
precisely in that extent did the ferocity of the 
Russian resentment, and their wrath at seeing 
the trampled worm turn or attempt a feeble 645 
retaliation, react upon the unfortunate Kal- 
mucks. At this crisis it is probable that 
envy and wounded pride, upon witnessing the 
splendid victories of Oubacha and Momot- 
bacha over the Turks and Bashkirs, con- <>5o 
tributed strength to the Russian irritation. 
And it must have been through the intrigues 
of those nobles about her person, who chiefly 
smarted under these feelings, that the Czarina 
could ever have lent herself to the unwise and 655 
ungrateful policy pursued at this critical period 
toward the Kalmuck Khan. That Czarina was 
no longer Elizabeth Petrowna : it was Cather- 



32 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

ine II. — a princess who did not often err so 
660 injuriously (injuriously for herself as much as 
for others) in the measures of her government. 
She had soon ample reason for repenting of 
her false policy. Meantime, how much it 
must have co-operated with the other motives 
665 previously acting upon Oubacha in sustaining 
his determination to revolt, and how power- 
fully it must have assisted the efforts of all the 
Tartar chieftains in preparing the minds of their 
people to feel the necessity of this difficult 
670 enterprise, by arming their pride and their 
suspicions against the Russian Government, 
through the keenness of their sympathy with 
the wrongs of their insulted prince, may be 
readily imagined. It is a fact, and it has been 

659. Catherine II. She was the daughter of the Prince of Anhalt 
Zerbst. Her original name was Sophia Augusta, but on her marriage, 
1745, with the Grand Duke of Russia, afterwards Peter III., she was 
baptized according to the formulary of the Greek Church, and named 
Catherine Alexiewna. She brought her husband two children: Paul, who 
succeeded her, and Anne, who died an infant. On the death of the 
Empress Elizabeth, 1761, Peter came to the throne, and soon discovered 
his intention of disinheriting his son and divorcing Catherine. She, how- 
ever, anticipated his designs, and formed a conspiracy against him. 
Accordingly, she gained over the nobility and the army, and on June 27, 
1762, Peter, after signing a renunciation of his crown, was sent prisoner 
to the palace of Robscha. Between the prisons and graves of princes 
the distance is short. On the 17th of July, Alexius Orloff, the Empress's 
favorite, with some others, strangled Peter, who, the Empress gave out, 
had died of colic. She did not take any measures against the assassins, 
and in the following September was crowned at Moscow. The regula- 
tions adopted at the beginning of her reign were in the manner and spirit 
of Peter the Great. She affected to rule by clemency, and labored to win 
the hearts of her subjects by acts of liberality. She also avoided foreign 
war till she had settled the tranquility of the empire. The passions ol 
this woman were as gross as her mental powers to govern her empire 
were great. She was born in 1729 and died in 1796. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 33 

confessed by candid Russians themselves, 675 
when treating of this great dismemberment, 
that the conduct of the Russian Cabinet 
throughout the period of suspense and during 
the crisis of hesitation in the Kalmuck Council, 
was exactly such as was most desirable for 680 
the purposes of the conspirators ; it was such, 
in fact, as to set the seal to all their machina- 
tions, by supplying distinct evidences and 
official vouchers for what could otherwise have 
been, at the most, matters of doubtful sus- 686 
picion and indirect presumption. 

Nevertheless, in the face of all these argu- 
ments, and even allowing their weight so far as 
not at all to deny the injustice or the impolicy 
of the imperial ministers, it is contended by 6 oo 
many persons who have reviewed the affair 
with a command of all the documents bearing 
on the case, more especially the letters or 
minutes of council subsequently discovered in 
the handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, and the 695 
important evidence of the Russian captive, 
Weseloff, who was carried off by the Kal- 
mucks in their flight, that beyond all doubt 
Oubacha was powerless for any purpose of 
impeding or even of delaying the revolt. He 70 o 

676. this great dismemberment, — that is, the separation of the 
Tartars from the Russian Empire 



34 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

himself, indeed, was under religious obligations 
of the most terrific solemnity never to flinch 
from the enterprise, or even to slacken in his 
zeal : for Zebek-Dorchi, distrusting the firm- 

705 ness of his resolution under any unusual 
pressure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the very 
earliest stage of the conspiracy, availed him- 
self of the Khan's well-known superstition to 
engage him, by means of previous concert 

710 with the priests and their head the Lama, in 
some dark and mysterious rites of consecra- 
tion, terminating in oaths under such terrific 
sanctions as no Kalmuck would have the 
courage to violate. As far, therefore, as re- 

715 garded the personal share of the Khan in 
what was to come, Zebek was entirely at his 
ease ; he knew him to be so deeply pledged 
by religious terrors to the prosecution of the 
conspiracy, that no honors within the Czarina's 

720 gift could have possibly shaken his adhesion : 
and then, as to threats from the same quarter, 
he knew him to be sealed against those fears 
by others of a gloomier character, and better 
adapted to his peculiar temperament. For 

725 Oubacha was a brave man as respected all 
bodily enemies or the dangers of human war- 
fare, but was as sensitive and as timid as the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 35 

most superstitious of old women in facing the 
frowns of a priest, or under the vague anticipa- 
tions of ghostly retributions. But, had it been 730 
otherwise, and had there been any reason to 
apprehend an unsteady demeanor on the part 
of this prince at the approach of the critical 
moment, such were the changes already ef- 
fected in the state of their domestic politics 735 
amongst the Tartars, by the undermining arts 
of Zebek-Dorchi and his ally the Lama, 
that very little importance would have at- 
tached to that doubt. All power was now 
effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek- 740 
Dorchi. He was the true and absolute wielder 
of the Kalmuck sceptre ; all measures of 
importance were submitted to his discretion, 
and nothing was finally resolved but under his 
dictation. This result he had brought about 745 
in a year or two, by means sufficiently simple ; 
first of all, by availing himself of the prejudice 
in his favor, so largely diffused amongst the 
lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to 
the throne, in quality of great-grandson, in a 750 
direct line from Ajouka, the most illustrious of 
all the Kalmuck Khans, stood upon a better 
basis than that of Oubacha, who derived from 
a collateral branch ; secondly, with respect to 



36 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

755 that sole advantage which Oubacha possessed 
above himself in the ratification of his title, 
by improving this difference between their 
situations to the disadvantage of his com- 
petitor, as one who had not scrupled to accept 

760 that triumph from an alien power at the price 
of his independence, which he himself (as he 
would have it understood) disdained to court; 
thirdly, by his own talents and address, 
coupled with the ferocious energy of his moral 

765 character ; fourthly — and perhaps in equal 
degree — by the criminal facility and good- 
nature of Oubacha; finally (which is remark- 
able enough, as illustrating the character of 
the man), by that very new modelling of the 

770 Sarga or Privy Council which he had used as 
a principal topic of abuse and malicious insin- 
uation against the Russian Government, whilst, 
in reality, he first had suggested the alteration 
to the Empress, and he chiefly appropriated 

775 the political advantages which it was fitted to 
yield. For, as he was himself appointed the 
chief of the Sargatchi, and as the pensions to 
the inferior Sargatchi passed through his 
hands, whilst in effect they owed their ap- 

7 8 o pointments to his nomination, it may be easily 
supposed that, whatever power existed in tm 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 37 

State capable of controlling the Khan, being 
held by the Sarga under its new organization, 
and this body being completely under his 
influence, the final result was to throw all the 785 
functions of the State, whether nominally in 
the prince or in the council, substantially into 
the hand of this one man ; whilst, at the same 
time, from the strict league which he main- 
tained with the Lama, all the thunders of the 790 
spiritual power were always ready to come in 
aid of the magistrate, or to supply his in- 
capacity in cases which he could not reach. 

But the time was now rapidly approaching 
for the mighty experiment. The day was 795 
drawing near on which the signal was to be 
given for raising the standard of revolt, and 
by a combined movement on both sides of the 
Wolga for spreading the smoke of one vast 
conflagration that should wrap in a common soo 
blaze their own huts and the stately cities of their 
enemies, over the breadth and length of those 
great provinces in which their flocks were dis- 
persed. The year of the tiger was now within 
one little month of its commencement; the 805 
fifth morning of that year was fixed for the 
fatal day when the fortunes and happiness of a 
whole nation were to be put upon the hazard 



$8 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

of a dicer's throw, and as yet that nation was 

810 in profound ignorance of the whole plan. The 
Khan, such was the kindness of his nature, 
could not bring himself to make the revelation 
so urgently required. It was clear, however, 
that this could not be delayed, and Zebek- 

815 Dorchi took the task willingly upon himself. 
But where or how should this notification 
be made, so as to exclude Russian hearers ! 
After some deliberation, the following plan 
was adopted: — Couriers, it was contrived, 

820 should arrive in furious haste, one upon the 
heels of another, reporting a sudden inroad of 
the Kirghises and Bashkirs upon the Kalmuck 
lands, at a point distant about 120 miles. 
Thither all the Kalmuck families, according to 

825 immemorial custom, were required to send a 
separate representative ; and there accordingly, 
within three days, all appeared. The distance, 
the solitary ground appointed for the ren- 
dezvous, the rapidity of the march, all tended 

830 to make it almost certain that no Russian 
could be present. Zebek-Dorchi then came 
forward. He did not waste many words upi^n 
rhetoric. He unfurled an immense sheet of 
parchment, visible from the uttermost distan-e 

835 at which any of this vast crowd could stanl ', 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 39 

the total number amounted to 80,000 ; all saw, 
and many heard. They were told of the 
oppressions of Russia; of her pride and 
haughty disdain evidenced towards them by 840 
a thousand acts ; of her contempt for their 
religion ; of her determination to reduce them 
to absolute slavery ; of the preliminary meas- 
ures she had already taken by erecting forts 
upon many of the great rivers in their neigh- 845 
borhood ; of the ulterior intentions she thus 
announced to circumscribe their pastoral lands, 
until they would all be obliged to renounce 
their flocks, and to collect in towns like 
Sarepta, there to pursue mechanical and servile 850 
trades of shoemaker, tailor, and. weaver, such 
as the free-born Tartar had always disdained. 
" Then again," said the subtle prince, " she 
increases her military levies upon our popu- 
lation every year ; we pour out our blood as 856 
young men in her defence, or more often in 
support of her insolent aggressions ; and as 
old men, we reap nothing from our sufferings 
nor benefit by our survivorship where so many 
are sacrificed." At this point of his harangue, seo 
Zebek produced several papers (forged, as it 
is generally believed, by himself and the 

850. Sarepta, a Moravian colony in the government of Saratov, on 
the Sarpa, near the great bend of the Volga. 



40 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Lama), containing projects of the Russian 
Court for a general transfer of the eldest sons, 

865 taken en masse from the greatest Kalmuck 
families to the imperial Court. " Now let this 
be once accomplished," he argued, " and there 
is an end of all useful resistance from that day 
forwards. Petitions we might make, or even 

870 remonstrances : as men of words we might 
play a bold part; but for deeds, for that sort 
of language by which our ancestors were used 
to speak — holding us by such a chain, Russia 
would make a jest of our wishes, knowing full 

875 W ell that we should not dare to make any 
effectual movement." 

Having thus sufficiently roused the angry 
passions of his vast audience, and having 
alarmed their fears by this pretended scheme 

880 against their first-born (an artifice which was 
indispensable to his purpose, because it met 
beforehand every form of amendment to his 
proposal coming from the more moderate 
nobles, who would not otherwise have failed to 

885 insist upon trying the effect of bold addresses 
to the Empress, before resorting to any des- 
perate extremity,) Zebek-Dorchi opened his 
scheme of revolt, and, if so, of instant revolt, 
since any preparations reported at St. Peters- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 4 1 

burg would be a signal for the armies of 890 
Russia to cross into such positions from all 
parts of Asia as would effectually intercept 
their march. It is remarkable, however, that, 
with all his audacity and his reliance upon the 
momentary excitement of the Kalmucks, the 395 
subtle prince did not venture, at this stage of 
his seduction, to make so startling a proposal 
as that of a flight to China. All that he held 
out for the present was a rapid march to the 
Temba or some other great river, which they 900 
were to cross, and to take up a strong position 
on the farther bank, from which, as from a 
post of conscious security, they could hold a 
bolder language to the Czarina, and one which 
would have a better chance of winning a 905 
favorable audience. 

These things, in the irritated condition of 
the simple Tartars, passed by acclamation, 
and all returned homewards to push forward 
with the most furious speed the preparations 910 
for their awful undertaking. Rapid and ener- 
getic these of necessity were, and in that 
degree they became noticeable and manifest 
to the Russians who happened to be inter- 

900-901. the Temba, or " Emba." A river of Turkistan, in the 
Kirghiz territory; flows S.W., and after a course of 300 miles falls into 
the Caspian Sea. 



42 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

915 mingled with the different hordes either on 

commercial errands, or as agents officially 

from the Russian Government, some in a 

financial, others in a diplomatic character. 

Amongst these last (indeed at the head of 

920 them) was a Russian of some distinction, by 
name Kichinskoi, a man memorable for his 
vanity, and memorable also as one of the 
many victims to the Tartar revolution. This 
Kichinskoi had been sent by the Empress as 

925 her envoy to overlook the conduct of the 
Kalmucks ; he was styled the Grand Pristaw, 
or Great Commissioner, and was universally 
known amongst the Tartar tribes by this title. 
His mixed character of ambassador and of 

930 political surveillant, combined with the de- 
pendent state of the Kalmucks, gave him a 
real weight in the Tartar councils, and might 
have given him a far greater, had not his 
outrageous self-conceit, and his arrogant con- 

935 fidence in his own authority, as due chiefly to 
his personal qualities for command, led him 
into such harsh displays of power, and 
menaces so odious to the Tartar pride, as very 
soon made him an object of their profoundest 

940 malice. He had publicly insulted the Khan ; 
and, upon making a communication to him to 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 43 

the effect that some reports began to circulate, 
and even to reach the Empress, of a design in 
agitation to fly from the imperial dominions, 
he had. ventured to say, " But this you dare 945 
not attempt; I laugh at such rumors; yes, 
Khan, I laugh at them to the Empress ; for 
you are a chained bear, and that you know." 
The Khan turned away on his heel with 
marked disdain, and the Pristaw, foaming at 950 
the mouth, continued to utter, amongst those 
of the Khan's attendants who stayed behind to 
catch his real sentiments in a moment of 
unguarded passion, all that the blindest frenzy 
of rage could suggest to the most pre- 955 
sumptuous of fools. It was now ascertained 
that suspicions had arisen, but at the same 
time it was ascertained that the Pristaw spoke 
no more than the truth in representing himself 
to have discredited these suspicions. The 960 
fact was, that the mere infatuation of vanity 
made him believe that nothing could go on 
undetected by his all-piercing sagacity, and 
that no rebellion could prosper when rebuked 
by his commanding presence. The Tartars, 965 
therefore, pursued their preparations, confiding 
in the obstinate blindness of the grand Pristaw 
as in their perfect safeguard ; and such it 



44 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

proved — to his own ruin as well as that of 

970 myriads beside. 

Christmas arrived ; and, a little before that 
time, courier upon courier came dropping in,, 
one upon the very heels of another, to St. 
Petersburg, assuring the Czarina that beyond 

975 all doubt the Kalmucks were in the very crisis 
of departure. These despatches came from 
the Governor of Astrachan, and copies were 
instantly forwarded to Kichinskoi. Now, it 
happened that between this governor — a 

980 Russian named Beketoff — and the Pristaw 
had been an ancient feud. The very name of 
Beketoff inflamed his resentment, and no 
sooner did he see that hated name attached to 
the despatch than he felt himself confirmed in 

985 his former views with tenfold bigotry, and wrote 
instantly, in terms of the most pointed ridicule 
against the new alarmist, pledging his own 
head upon the visionariness of his alarms. 
Beketoff, however, was not to be put down by 

990 a few hard words or by ridicule : he persisted 
in his statements ; the Russian ministry were 
confounded by the obstinacy of the disputants, 
and some were beginning even to treat the 
Governor of Astrachan as a bore, and as the 

995 dupe of his own nervous terrors, when the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 45 

memorable day arrived, the fatal 5 th of 
January, which for ever terminated the dis- 
pute, and put a seal upon the earthly hopes 
and fortunes of unnumbered myriads. The 
Governor of Astrachan was the first to hear 1000 
the news. Stung by the mixed furies of 
jealousy, of triumphant vengeance, and of 
anxious ambition, he sprang into his sledge, 
and, at the rate of 300 miles a day, pursued 
his route to St. Petersburg — rushed into the 1005 
imperial presence — announced the total real- 
ization of his worst predictions — and upon 
the confirmation of this intelligence by sub- 
sequent despatches from many different posts 
on the Wolga, he received an imperial com- 1010 
mission to seize the person of his deluded 
enemy, and to keep him in strict captivity. 
These orders were eagerly fulfilled, and the 
unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards ex- 
pired of grief and mortification in the gloomy 1015 
solitude of a dungeon — victim to his own 
immeasurable, vanity and the blinding self- 
delusions of a presumption that refused all 
warning. 

The Governor of Astrachan had been but 1020 
too faithful a prophet. Perhaps even he was 
surprised at the suddenness with which the 



46 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

verification followed his reports. Precisely on 
the 5th of January, the day so solemnly 

1025 appointed under religious sanctions by the 
Lama, the Kalmucks on the east bank of 
the Wolga were seen at the earliest dawn 
of day assembling by troops and squadrons, 
as in the tumultuous movement of some great 

logo morning of battle. Tens of thousands con- 
tinued moving off the ground at every half- 
hour's interval. Women and children, to the 
amount of two hundred thousand and up- 
wards, were placed upon wagons, or upon 

1035 camels, and drew off by masses of twenty 
thousand at once — placed under suitable 

, escorts, and continually swelled in numbers by 
other outlying bodies of the horde, who kept 
falling in at various distances upon the first 

1040 and second day's march. From sixty to 
eighty thousand of those who were the best 
mounted staid behind the rest of the tribes, 
with purposes of devastation and plunder more 
violent than prudence justified, or the amrable 

1045 character of the Khan could be supposed to 
approve. But in this, as in other instances, 
he was completely overruled by the malignant 
counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest 
of the desolating fury of the Tartars discharged 

1042. staid. Now usually spelt " stayed," to differentiate it from 
" staid," sober, steady. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 47 

itself upon their own habitations. But this, asioso 
cutting off all infirm looking, backward from 
the hardships of their march, had been 
thought so necessary a measure by all the 
chieftains, -that even Oubacha himself was the 
first to authorize the act by his own example. 1055 
He seized a torch previously prepared with 
materials the most durable as well as com- 
bustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers 
of his own palace. Nothing was saved from 
the general wreck except the portable part of 1060 
the domestic utensils and that part of the 
wood-work which could be applied to the 
manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This 
chapter in their memorable day's work being 
finished, and the whole of their villages 1065 
throughout a district of ten thousand square 
miles in one simultaneous blaze, the Tartars 
waited for further orders. 

These, it was intended, should have taken a 
character of valedictory vengeance, and thus 1070 
have left behind to the Czarina a dreadful 
commentary upon the main motives of their 
flight. It was the purpose of Zebek-Dorchi 
that all the Russian towns, churches, and 
buildings of every description, should be given 1075 
up to pillage and destruction, and such treat- 



48 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

ment applied to the defenceless inhabitants as 
might naturally, be expected from a fierce 
people already infuriated by the spectacle 

lose of their own outrages, and by the bloody 
retaliations which they must necessarily have 
provoked. This part of the tragedy, however, 
was happily intercepted by a providential 
disappointment at the very crisis of departure. 

loss It has been mentioned already that the motive 
for selecting the depth of winter as the season 
of flight (which otherwise was obviously the 
very worst possible), had been the impossi- 
bility of effecting a junction sufficiently rapid 

1090 with the tribes on the west of the Wolga, in 
the absence of bridges, unless by a natural 
bridge of ice. For this one advantage the 
Kalmuck leaders had consented to aggravate 
by a thousandfold the calamities inevitable to 

1095 a rapid flight over boundless tracts of country, 
with women, children, and herds of cattle — 
for this one single advantage ; and yet, after 
all, it was lost. The reason never has been 
explained satisfactorily, but the fact was such. 

1100 Some have said that the signals were not 
properly concerted for marking the moment 
of absolute departure — that is, for signifying 
whether the settled intention of the Eastern 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 49 

Kalmucks might not have been suddenly 
interrupted by adverse intelligence. Others 1105 
have supposed that the ice might not be 
equally strong on both sides of the river, and 
might even be generally insecure for the 
treading of heavy and heavily-laden animals, 
such as camels. But the prevailing notion is, 1110 
that some accidental movements on the 3rd 
and 4th of January of Russian troops in the 
neighborhood of the Western Kalmucks, 
though really having no reference to them or 
their plans, had been construed into certain 1115 
signs that all was discovered, and that the 
prudence of the Western chieftains, who, from 
situation, had never been exposed to those in- 
trigues by which Zebek-Dorchi had practiced 
upon the pride of the Eastern tribes, now 1120 
stepped in to save their people from ruin. Be 
the cause what it might, it is certain that the 
Western Kalmucks were in some way pre- 
vented from forming the intended junction 
with their brethren of the opposite bank ; and 1125 
the result was, that at least one hundred 
thousand of these Tartars were left behind in 
Russia. This accident it was which saved 
their Russian neighbors universally from the 
desolation which else awaited them. One mo 



50 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

general massacre and conflagration would 
assuredly have surprised them, to the utter 
extermination of their property, their houses, 
and themselves had it not been for this dis- 

1135 appointment. But the Eastern chieftains did 
not dare to put to hazard the safety of their 
brethren under the first impulse of the Czar- 
ina's vengeance for so dreadful a tragedy; 
for, as they were well aware of too many 

ii4o circumstances by which she might discover 
the concurrence of the Western people in the 
general scheme of revolt, they justly feared 
that she would thence infer their concurrence 
also in the bloody events which marked its 

U45 outset. 

Little did the Western Kalmucks guess what 
reasons they also had for gratitude on account 
of an interposition so unexpected, and which 
at the moment they so generally deplored. 

1150 Could they but have witnessed the thou- 
sandth part of the sufferings which overtook 
their Eastern brethren in the first month of 
their sad flight, they would have blessed 
Heaven for their own narrow escape ; and yet 

1155 these sufferings of the first month were but a 
prelude or foretaste comparatively slight of 
those which afterwards succeeded. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 5 I 

For now began to unroll the most awful 
series of calamities, and the most extensive 
which is anywhere recorded to have visited 1160 
the sons and daughters of men. It is possible 
that the sudden inroads of destroying nations, 
such as the Huns or the Avars or the Mongol 
Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive, 
but there the misery and the desolation n65 
would be sudden, like the flight of vollying 
lightning. Those who were spared at first 
would generally be spared to the end ; those 
who perished at all would perish at once. 
It is possible that the French retreat from 1170 
Moscow may have made some nearer approach 
to this calamity in duration, though still a 
feeble and miniature approach, for the French 
sufferings did not commence in good earnest 
until about one month from the time of 1175 
leaving Moscow ; and though it is true that 
afterwards the vials of wrath were emptied 
upon the devoted army for six or seven weeks 
in succession, yet what is that to this Kal- 
muck tragedy, which lasted for more than as nso 

1163-1164. Huns, a famous barbaric people, who are generally said to 
have had an Asiatic origin and to have been of the Mongol race. They 
figured for the first time in European history at the end of the fourth 
century. Avars, a fierce predatory people inhabiting the Eastern 
Caucasus, nominally subject to Russia. Mongol Tartars, wandering 
hordes of that nomadic race which, under the name of Monguls or 
Moguls, has been so celebrated for its invasions of Northern India and 
China. 



52 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

many months? But the main feature of 
horror by which the Tartar march was dis- 
tinguished from the French, lies in the accom- 
paniment of women* and children. There 

ii85 W ere both, it is true, with the French army, 
but not so many as to bear any marked pro- 
portion to the total numbers concerned. The 
French, in short, were merely an army — a host 
of professional destroyers, whose regular trade 

1190 was bloodshed, and whose regular element 
was danger and suffering. But the Tartars 
were a nation carrying along with them more 
than two hundred and fifty thousand women 
and children, utterly unequal, for the most 

1195 part, to any contest with the calamities before 
them. The Children of Israel were in the 
same circumstances as to the accompaniment 
of their families, but they were released from 
the pursuit of their enemies in a very early 

1200 stage of their flight; and their subsequent 
residence in the Desert was not a march, but 
a continued halt, and under a continued inter- 
position of Heaven for their comfortable sup- 
port. Earthquakes, again, however compre- 

i205hensive in their ravages,' are shocks of a 

* Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women accom- 
panied the a?iabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent Retreat of 
the Ten Thousand. Xenophon affirms that there were many" women 
in the Greek army; and in a late stage of that trying expedition it is 
evident that women were amongst the survivors. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 53 

moment's duration. A much nearer approach 
made to the wide range and the long duration 
of the Kalmuck tragedy may have been in a 
pestilence such as that which visited Athens 
in the Peloponnesian War, or London in the 1210 
reign of Charles II. There also the martyrs 
were counted by myriads, arid the period of 
the desolation was counted by months. But, 
after all, the total amount of destruction was 
on a smaller scale, and there was this feature 1215 
of alleviation to the conscious pressure of the 
calamity — that the misery was withdrawn 
from public notice into private chambers and 
hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by Ves- 
pasian and his son, taken in its entire circum-1220 
stances, comes nearest of all — for breadth 
and depth of suffering, for duration, for the 
exasperation of the suffering from without by 
internal feuds, and, finally, for that last most 

1209. a pestilence . . . which visited Athens. The reference is to the 
devastating plague at Athens, which spread into Egypt and Ethiopia, 430 b c. 

1210. Peloponnesian War. This war continued for 27 years between 
Athens and the people of Peloponnesus. It began by an attempt of the 
Boeotians to surprise Platae, B.C. 431, and ended in 404, when Athens was 
captured by the Lacedaemonians: London (Plague in). The great 
Plague of London began December, 1664, and carried off nearly 100,000 
persons. The best description of it is that by Defoe. 

12 9 Jerusalem. During the reign of the Emperor Nero, the Jews re- 
belled against the tyranny of the Proconsuls, and Vespasian was sent with 
three legions to quell the revolt. He prosecuted the war with vigor until he 
was proclaimed Emperor, 1st July, a.d. 69. Titus (" his son ") remained in 
Palestine to carry on the siege of Jerusalem. He finally captured and 
burnt the city on 8th of September, A.D. 70. See Josephus, " His'ory of 
the Wars of the Jews." 



54 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

1225 appalling expression of the furnace-heat of the 
anguish in its power to extinguish the natural 
affections even of maternal love. But, after 
all, each case had circumstances of romantic 
misery peculiar to itself — circumstances with- 

1230 out precedent and (wherever human nature is 
ennobled by Christianity) it may be confidently 
hoped, never to be repeated. 

The first point to be reached, before any 
hope of repose could be encouraged, was the 

1235 river Jaik. This was not above 300 miles from 
the main point of departure on the Wolga, and 
if the march thither was to be a forced one and 
a severe one, it was alleged, on the other hand, 
that the suffering would be the more brief and 

1240 transient : one summary exertion, not to be 
repeated, and all was achieved. Forced the 
march was, and severe beyond example ; 
there the forewarning proved correct, but the 
promised rest proved a mere phantom of the 

1245 wilderness — a visionary rainbow which fled 
before their hope-sick eyes across these inter- 
minable solitudes, for seven months of hard- 
ship and calamity, without a pause. These 
sufferings, by their very nature and the cir- 

1250 cumstances under which they arose, were 

1235. the river Jaik, the river Ural or Yaik. After a course of about 
1800 miles it enters the Caspian Sea 180 miles from Astracan. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 55 

(like the scenery of the steppes) somewhat 
monotonous in their coloring and external 
features ; what variety, however, there was, will 
be most naturally exhibited by tracing his- 
torically the successive stages of the general 1 * 256 
misery, exactly as it unfolded itself under the 
double agency of weakness still increasing 
from within and hostile pressure from without. 
Viewed in this manner, under the real order of 
development, it is remarkable that these suffer- 1260 
ings of the Tartars, though under the moulding 
hands of accident, arrange themselves almost 
with a scenical propriety. They seem com- 
bined as with the skill of an artist ; the intensity 
of the misery advancing regularly with the 1266 
advances of the march, and the stages of the 
calamity corresponding to the stages of the 
route, so that, upon raising the curtain which 
veils the great catastrophe, we behold one 
vast climax of anguish, towering upwards by 1270 
regular gradations, as if constructed artificially 
for picturesque effect — a result which might 
not have been surprising had it been reason- 
able to anticipate the same rate of speed, and 
even an accelerated rate, as prevailing through 1275 
the later stages of the expedition. But it 
seemed, on the contrary, most reasonable to 



56 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

calculate upon a continual decrement in the 
rate of motion according to the increasing dis- 

i28otance from the headquarters of the pursuing 
enemy. This calculation, however, was de- 
feated by the extraordinary circumstance that 
the Russian armies did not begin to close in 
very fiercely upon the Kalmucks until after 

1285 they had accomplished a distance of full 2000 
miles; 1000 miles farther on the assaults be- 
came even more tumultuous and murderous; 
and already the great shadows of the Chinese 
Wall were dimly descried when the frenzy and 

1290 acharnement of the pursuers, and the bloody 
desperation of the miserable fugitives, had 
reached its uttermost extremity. Let us briefly 
rehearse the main stages of the misery and 
trace the ascending steps of the tragedy, 

1295 according to the great divisions of the route 
marked out by the central rivers of Asia. 

The first stage, we have already said, was 
from the Wolga to the Jaik ; the distance about 
300 miles ; the time allowed seven days. For 

1300 the first week, therefore, the rate of marching 
averaged about 43 English miles a day. The 
weather was cold, but bracing, and, at a more 
moderate pace, this part of the journey might 

1290. acharnement, French for " fierce cruelty, fellness." 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 57 

have been accomplished without much distress 
by a people as hardy as the Kalmucks : as it 1305 
was, the cattle suffered greatly from over- 
driving ; milk began ■ to fail even for the chil- 
dren ; the sheep perished by wholesale ; and 
the children themselves were saved only by 
the innumerable camels. 1310 

The Cossacks, who dwelt upon the banks of 
the Jaik, were the first among the subjects of 
Russia to come into collision with the Kal- 
mucks. Great was their surprise at the 
suddenness of the irruption, and great also l315 
their consternation ; for, according to their 
settled custom, by far the greater part of their 
number was absent during the winter months 
at the fisheries upon the Caspian. Some who 
were liable to surprise at the most exposed 1320 
points, fled in crowds to the fortress of Koula- 
gina, which was immediately invested, and 
summoned by Oubacha. He had, however, 
in his train, only a few light pieces of artillery, 
and the Russian commandant at Koulagina, 1325 
being aware of the hurried circumstances in 
which'the Khan was placed, and that he stood 
upon the very edge, as it were, of a renewed 
flight, felt encouraged by these considerations 
to a more obstinate resistance than might else 

fe 1330 



58 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

:335 have been advisable with an enemy so little 
disposed to observe the usages v of civilized 
warfare. The period of his anxiety was not 
long ; on the fifth day of the siege, he descried 
from the walls a succession of Tartar couriers, 

1340 mounted upon fleet Bactrian camels, crossing 
the vast plains around the fortress at a furious 
pace, and riding into the Kalmuck encamp- 
ment at various points. Great agitation ap- 
peared immediately to follow : orders were 

1345 soon after despatched in all directions, and it 
became speedily known that upon a distant 
flank of the Kalmuck movement a bloody and 
exterminating battle had been fought the day 
before, in which one entire tribe of the Khan's 

1350 dependants, numbering not less than 9000 
fighting men, had perished to the last man. 
This was the ouloss> or clan, called Feka- 
Zechorr, between whom and the Cossacks 
there was a feud of ancient standing. In 

1355 selecting, therefore, the points of attack, on 
occasion of the present hasty inroad, the 
Cossack chiefs were naturally eager so to 
direct their efforts as to combine with the 
service of the Empress some gratification to 

1360 their own party hatreds ; more especially as 
the present was likely to be their final oppor- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 59 

tunity for revenge if the Kalmuck evasion 
should prosper. Having, therefore, concen- 
trated as large a body of Cossack cavalry as 
circumstances allowed, they attacked the 136 5 
hostile ouloss with a precipitation which denied 
to it all means for communicating with 
Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding 
an ample range of pasturage, to meet the 
necessities of their vast flocks and herds, had 1370 
separated this ouloss from the Khan's head- 
quarters by an interval of eighty miles : and 
thus it was, and not from oversight, that 
it came to be thrown entirely upon its own 
resources. These had proved insufficient ; i3?5 
retreat, from the exhausted state of their 
horses and camels, no less than from the 
prodigious encumbrances of their live stock, 
was absolutely out of the question ; quarter 
was disdained on the one side, and would noti3so 
have been granted on the other : and thus it 
had happened that the setting sun of that one 
day (the thirteenth from the first opening 
of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon the 
final agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched upon 1385 
a bloody field, who on that day's dawning had 
held and styled themselves an independent 
nation. 



60 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Universal consternation was diffused through 

1390 the wide borders of the Khan's encampment 
by this disastrous intelligence, not so much 
on account of the numbers slain, or the total 
extinction of a powerful ally, as because the 
position of the Cossack force was likely to put 

1395 to hazard the future advances of the Kal- 
mucks, or at least, to retard and hold them in 
check until the heavier columns of the Russian 
army should arrive upon their flanks. The 
siege of Koulagina was instantly raised, and 

1400 that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the 
women and their children, once again re- 
sounded through the tents — the signal for 
flight, and this time for a flight more rapid than 
ever. About 150 miles ahead of their present 

imposition, there arose a tract of hilly country, 
forming a sort of margin to the vast sea-like 
expanse of champaign savannahs, steppes, and 
occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched 
away on each side of this margin both east- 

1410 wards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 
centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, 
through which passed the nearest and the 
most practicable route to the river Torgau (the 



1413. Torgau, otherwise spelt " Turghai" or "Torgai." Geographers 
spell the name in all sorts of ways. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 6 I 

farther bank of which river offered the next 
great station of security for a general halt) 1415 
It was the more essential to gain this pass 
before the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only 
would the delay in forcing the pass give time 
to the Russian pursuing columns for combin- 
ing their attacks, and for bringing up their U2 o 
artillery, but also because (even if all enemies 
in pursuit were thrown out of the question) it 
was held by those best acquainted with the 
difficult and obscure geography of these path- 
less steppes that the loss of this one narrow 1425 
strait amongst the hills would have the effect of 
throwing them (as their only alternative in a 
case where so wide a sweep of pasturage was 
required) upon a circuit of at least 500 miles 
extra; besides that, after all, this circuitous 1430 
route would carry them to the Torgau at a 
point ill fitted for the passage of their heavy 
baggage. The defile in the hills, therefore, 
it was resolved to gain, and yet, unless they 
moved upon it with the velocity of light 1435 
cavalry, there was little chance but it would be 
found preoccupied by the Cossacks. They 
also, it is true, had suffered greatly in the 
bloody action with the defeated onloss ; but 
the excitement of victory, and the intense im 



62 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

sympathy with their unexampled triumph, 
had again swelled their ranks, and would 
probably act with the force of a vortex to 
draw in their simple countrymen from the 

1445 Caspian. The question, therefore, of pre- 
occupation was reduced to a race. The Cos- 
sacks were marching upon an oblique line not 
above 50 miles longer than that which led to 
the same point from the Kalmuck headquarters 

1450 before Koulagina ; and therefore, without the 
most furious haste on the part of the Kal- 
mucks, there was not a chance for them, 
burdened and " trashed " as they were, to 
anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the Cos- 

1455 sacks in seizing this important pass. 

Dreadful were the feelings of the poor 
women on hearing this exposition of the case, 
for they easily understood that too capital an 

x 453 " trashed," checked and thus exhausted See Scott's " Black 
Dwarf," ch. ix., " Sair trashed wi' his night wark; " see also Shakes- 
peare's " Tempest," i. 2. 81: — 

" Who to trash for overtopping." 

and in "Othello," ii. 1. 312: — 

" This poor trash of Venice, who I trash 
For his quick hunting " 

"Trashed;" — This is an expressive word used by Beaumont and 
Fletcher in their " Bonduca," etc., to describe the case of a person 
retarded and embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, 
whether thing or person, too valuable to be left behind. 

1458. too capital an interest, a matter of such supreme importance 
that minor interests must yield to it. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 6$ 

interest (the summa rerum) was now at stake, 
to allow of any regard to minor interests, or 14 #> 
what would be considered such in their pres- 
ent circumstances. The dreadful week already 
passed — their inauguration in misery — was 
yet fresh in their remembrance. The scars of 
suffering were impressed not only upon their 1465 
memories, but upon their very persons and the 
persons of their children. And they knew 
that where no speed had much chance of 
meeting the cravings of the chieftains, no test 
would be accepted, short of absolute exhaus-1470 
tion, that as much had been accomplished 
as could have been accomplished. Weseloff, 
the Russian captive, has recorded the silent 
wretchedness with which the women and elder 
boys assisted in drawing the tent-ropes. On 1*75 
the 5th of January, all had been animation 
and the joyousness of indefinite expectation ; 
now, on the contrary, a brief but bitter experi- 
ence had taught them to take an amended 
calculation of what it was that lay before wso 
them. 

One whole day and far into the succeeding 
night had the renewed flight continued ; the 
sufferings had been greater than before, for 

1459. summa rerum, the main thing. 



64 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

1485 the cold had been more intense, and many 
perished out of the living creatures through 
every class, except only the camels — whose 
powers of endurance seemed equally adapted 
to cold and to heat. The second morning, 

1490 however, brought an alleviation to the distress. 
Snow had begun to fall, and though not deep 
at present, it was easily forseen that it soon 
would be so, and that, as a halt would in that 
case become unavoidable, no plan could be 

1495 better than that of staying where they were, 
especially as the same cause would check the 
advance of the Cossacks. Here, then, was 
the last interval of comfort which gleamed 
upon the unhappy nation during their whole 

1500 migration. For ten days the snow continued 
to fall with little intermission. At the end of 
that time keen, bright, frosty weather suc- 
ceeded ; the drifting had ceased ; in three 
days the smooth expanse became firm enough 

1505 to support the treading of the camels, and the 
flight was recommenced. But during the halt 
much domestic comfort had been enjoyed, 
and for the last time universal plenty. The 
cows and oxen had perished in such vast 

i5io numbers on the previous marches, that an 
order was now issued to turn what remained 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 65 

to account by slaughtering the whole, and 
salting whatever part should be found to 
exceed the immediate consumption. This 
measure led to a scene of general banqueting, isis 
and even of festivity, amongst all who were 
not incapacitated for joyous emotions by dis- 
tress of mind, by grief for the unhappy experi- 
ence of the last few days, and by anxiety- for 
the too gloomy future. Seventy thousand 1520 
persons of all ages had already perished, 
exclusively of the many thousand allies who 
had been cut down by the Cossack sabre. 
And the losses in reversion were likely to be 
many more, for rumors began now to arrive 1525 
from all quarters, by the mounted couriers 
whom the Khan had dispatched to the rear 
and to each flank as well as in advance, that 
large masses of the imperial troops were con- 
verging from all parts of Central Asia to the 1530 
fords of the river Torgau, as the most conven- 
ient point for intercepting the flying tribes, 
and it was by this time well known that a 
powerful division was close in their rear, and 
was retarded only by the numerous artillery 1535 
which had been judged necessary to support 
their operations. New motives were thus 

1524. in reversion A legal phrase. Here it means simply " that 
were to come to them." 



66 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

daily arising for quickening the motions of the 
wretched Kalmucks, and for exhausting those 

1540 who were all ready but too much exhausted. 

It was not until the 2d of February that the 

Khan's advanced guard came in sight of 

Ouchim, the defile among the hills of Mou- 

galdchares, in which they anticipated so 

1645 bloody an opposition from the Cossacks. A 
pretty large body of these light cavalry had, 
in fact, preoccupied' the pass for some hours, 
but the Khan having two great advantages — 
namely, a strong body of infantry, who had 

1550 been conveyed by sections of five on about 
200 camels, and some pieces of light artillery 
which he had not yet been forced to aban- 
don — soon began to make a serious impres- 
sion upon this unsupported detachment, and 

1555 they would probably at any rate have retired, 
but at the very moment when they were mak- 
ing some dispositions in that view Zebek- 
Dorchi appeared upon the rear with a body of 
trained riflemen, who had distinguished them- 

1560 selves in the war with Turkey. These men 
had contrived to crawl unobserved over the 
cliffs which skirted the ravine, availing them- 
selves of the dry beds of the summer torrents, 

1543. Ouchim, Ichim, south of Tobolsk, on the river Irtish. 



REVOLT OK THE TARTARS. 67 

and other inequalities of the ground to conceal 
their movement. Disorder and trepidation 15<i5 
ensued instantly in the Cossack files ; the 
Khan, who had been waiting with the elite of 
his heavy cavalry, charged furiously upon 
them ; total overthrow followed to the Cos- 
sacks, and a slaughter*such as in some meas- i^o 
ure avenged the recent bloody extermination 
of their allies, the ancient ouloss of Feka- 
Zechorr. The slight horses of the Cossacks 
were unable to support the weight of heavy 
Polish dragoons and a body of trained catn-vmh 
eleers (that is, cuirassiers mounted on camels) ; 
hardy they were, but not strong, nor a match 
for their antagonists in weight, and their 
extraordinary efforts through the last few days 
to gain their present position had greatly isso 
diminished their powers for effecting an 
escape. Very few, in fact, did escape, and 
the bloody day at Ouchim became as mem- 
orable amongst the Cossacks as that which, 
about twenty days before, had signalized theirs 

1567. elite, French for " pick, choicest." 

1575. Polish. It is hard to see what De Quincey means here. He 
probably uses " Polish dragoons " to mean " heavy cavalry," as opposed 
to the " light Cossack cavalry." 

camaleers. In the Egyptian campaign for the relief of Gordon 
the troops mounted on camels were styled " camelry." 



68 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

complete annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr.* 
The road was now open to the river Irgitch, 
and as yet even far beyond it to the Torgau ; 
but how long this state of things would con- 
i59otinue, was every day more doubtful. Certain 
• intelligence was now received that a large 
Russian army, well appointed in every arm, 
was advancing upon the Torgau, under the 
command of General Traubenberg. This 
1595 officer was to be joined on his route by ten 
thousand Bashkirs and pretty nearly the same 
amount of Kirghises — both hereditary ene- 
mies of the Kalmucks, both exasperated to 

* There was another onloss equally strong with that of Feka Zechorr, 
viz., that of Erketunn, under the government of Assarcho and Machi, 
whom some obligations of treaty or other hidden motives drew into the 
general conspiracy of revolt. But fortunately the two chieftains found 
means to assure the Governor of Astrach n, on the first outbreak of the 
insurrection, that their real wishes were for maintaining the old connec- 
tions with Russia. The Cossacks, therefore, to whom the pursuit was 
entrusted, had instructions to act cautiously and according to circum- 
stances on coming up with them The result wa«, through the prudent 
management of Assarcho, that the clan, without compromising their pride 
or independence, made such moderate submissions as satisfied the Cos- 
sacks, and eventually both chiefs and people received from the Czarina 
the rewards and honors of exemplary fidelity. 

1596. Bashkirs, a Tartar tribe of Russia, where they occupy a portion 
of the Government of Orenburg, Perm, and Viatka. These people are in 
Asia generally called Ischtiaks They live principally in tents and on the 
produce of the chase, troubling themselves but little with agriculture, ex- 
cept in the winter, which they pass in their villages. Rich gold and platina 
mines exist in their territory. They are Mahommedans, and pay no taxes, 
but are all held under military service to guard the frontier Their number 
is about 200,000 of whom 70,000 are enrolled on the same footing as the 
Don Cossacks. 

1597. Kirghises, a numerous and widely-extended people of Indepen- 
dent Tartary, occupying a great part of the southern frontier of Asiatic 
Russia. The area over which they extend is estimated at 1,530,000 square 
miles, chiefly composed of barren plains, and abounding in salt lakes, some 
of which are 100 miles in length. The Kirghises are a Mongol race, di- 
vided into hordes, and numbering about 250,000. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 69 

a point of madness by the bloody trophies 
which Oubacha and Momotbacha had, in latei6oo 
years, won from such of their compatriots as 
served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke 
these wild nations bore with submissive 
patience, but not the hands by which it had 
been imposed, and accordingly, catching with 1605 
eagerness at the present occasion offered to 
their vengeance, they sent an assurance to the 
Czarina of their perfect obedience to her com- 
mands, and at the same time a message sig- 
nificantly declaring in what spirit they meant ieio 
to execute them, viz., "that they would not 
trouble her Majesty with prisoners." 

Here, then rose, as before the Cossacks, a 
race for the Kalmucks with the regular armies 
of Russia, and concurrently with nations asi6i5 
fierce and semi-humanized as themselves, 
besides that they had been stung into threefold 
activity by the furies of mortified pride and 
military abasement under the eyes of the 
Turkish Sultan. The forces, and more espe-1620 
cially the artillery, of Russia were far too 
overwhelming to bear the thought of a regular 
opposition in pitched battles, even with a less 
dilapidated state of their resources than they 
could reasonably expect at the period of their 1626 



70 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

arrival on the Torgau. In their speed lay 
their only hope — in strength of foot, as 
before, and not in strength of arm. Onward, 

1630 therefore, the Kalmucks pressed, marking the 
lines of their wide-extending march over the 
sad solitudes of the steppes by a never-ending 
chain of corpses. The old and the young, 
the sick man on his couch, the mother 

1630 with her baby — all were dropping fast. 
Sights such as these, with the many rueful 
aggravations incident to the helpless condition 
of infancy — of disease and of female weakness 
abandoned to the wolves amidst a howling 

1635 wilderness, continued to track their course 
through a space of full two thousand miles, 
for so much, at the least, it was likely to 
prove, including the circuits to which they 
were often compelled by rivers or hostile 

i64o tribes, from the point of starting on the 
Wolga, until they could reach their destined 
halting ground on the east bank of the Tor- 
gau. For the first seven weeks of this march 
their sufferings had been embittered by the 

1645 excessive severity of the cold, and every 
night — so long as wood was to be had for 
fires either from the lading of the camels, or 
from the desperate sacrifice of their baggage- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 71 

wagons, or (as occasionally happened) from 
the forests which skirted the banks of theiwo 
many rivers which crossed their path — no 
spectacle was more frequent than that of a 
circle, composed of men, women, and children 
gathered by hundreds round a central fire, all 
dead and stiff at the return of morning light, w-55 
Myriads were left behind from pure exhaus- 
tion, of whom none had a chance, under the 
combined evils which beset them, of surviving 
through the next twenty-four hours. Frost, 
however, and snow at length ceased to perse- 1660 
cute ; the vast extent of the march at length 
brought them into more genial latitudes, and 
the unusual duration of the march was gradu- 
ally bringing them into more geniai seasons of 
the year. Two thousand miles had at lastiees 
been traversed ; February, March, April were 
gone; the balmy month of May had opened; 
vernal sights and sounds came from every 
side to comfort the heart-weary travelers, and 
at last, in the latter end of May, crossing thei 6 7o 
Torgau, they took up a position where they 
hoped to find liberty to repose themselves for 
many weeks in comfort as well as in security, 
and to draw such supplies from the fertile 
neighborhood as might restore their shattered 1675 



72 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

forces to a condition for executing, with less 
of wreck and ruin, the large remainder of the 
journey. 

Yes : it was true that two thousand miles of 

1680 wandering had been completed, but in a period 
of nearly five months, .and with the terrific 
sacrifice of at least two hundred and fifty 
thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and 
flocks past all reckoning. These had all 

1685 perished : ox, cow, horse, mule, ass, sheep, 
or goat, not one survived — only the camels. 
These arid and adust creatures, looking like 
the mummies of some antediluvian animals, 
without the affections and sensibilities of flesh 

1690 and blood — these only still erected their 
speaking eyes to the eastern heavens, and had 
to all appearance come out from this long 
tempest of trial unscathed and hardly dimin- 
ished. The Khan, knowing how much he was 

1695 individually answerable for the misery which 
had been sustained, must have wept tears 
even more bitter than those of Xerxes, when 



1697. Xerxes. In b c 480, Xerxes determined to invade Greece and 
bridged the Hellespont. Over this bridge " the whole Persian army 
defiled in safety, while Xerxes, seated on a marble throne on the Asiatic 
shore, watched the interminable line of march as it pressed forward into 
Europe. At the sight of such countless myriads of men, even the reckless 
despot was touched by a feeling of common humanity; he burst into tears 
when he reflected that of the whole host not one man would be alive a 
hundred years hence." 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. ■ 73 

he threw his eyes over the myriads whom he 
had assembled : for the tears of Xerxes were 
unmingled with remorse. Whatever amends i?oo 
were in his power, the Khan resolved to make 
by sacrifices to the general good of all per- 
sonal regards ; and, accordingly, even at this 
point of their advance, he once more deliber- 
ately brought under review the whole question 1705 
of the revolt. The question was formally 
debated before the Council, whether, even at 
this point, they should untread their steps, 
and, throwing themselves upon the Czarina's 
mercy, return to their old allegiance? In that mo 
case, Oubacha professed himself willing to 
become the scapegoat for the general trans- 
gression. This, he argued, was no fantastic 
scheme, but even easy of accomplishment, for 
the unlimited and sacred power of the Kahn, m 5 
so well known to the Empress, made it absol- 
utely iniquitous to attribute any separate 
responsibility to the people — upon the Khan 
rested the guilt, upon the Kahn would descend 
the imperial vengeance. This proposal was 1720 
applauded for its generosity, but was ener- 
getically opposed by Zebek-Dorchi. Were 
they to lose the whole journey of two thous- 
and miles? Was their misery to perish without 



74 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

1725 fruit? True it was that they had yet reached 
only the half-way house ; but, in that respect, 
the motives were evenly balanced for .retreat 
or for advance. Either way they would have 
pretty nearly the same distance to traverse, 

1730 but with this difference — that, forwards, their 
route lay through lands comparatively fertile ; 
backwards, through a blasted wilderness, rich 
only in memorials of their sorrow, and hideous 
to Kalmuck eyes by the trophies of their 

1753 calamity. Besides, though the Empress 
might accept an excuse for the past, would 
she the less forbear to suspect for the future? 
The Czarina's pardon they might obtain, but 
could they ever hope to recover her confidence? 

mo Doubtless there would now be a standing pre- 
sumption against them, an immortal ground of 
jealousy ; and a jealous government would be 
but another name for a harsh one. Finally, 
whatever motives there ever had been for the 

1745 revolt surely remained unimpaired by any- 
thing that had occurred. In reality, the revolt 
was, after all, no revolt, but (strictly speaking) 
a return to their old allegiance, since, not 
above one hundred and fifty years ago (viz., 

1750 in the year 1616), their ancestors had revolted 
from the Emperor of China. They had now 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 75 

tried both governments, and for them China 
was the land of promise and Russia the house 
of bondage. 

Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say m5 
or do, the yearning of the people was strongly 
in behalf of the Khan's proposal ; the pardon 
of their prince, they persuaded themselves, 
would be readily conceded by the Empress, 
and there is little doubt that they would at this i 7 6o 
time have thrown themselves gladly upon the 
imperial mercy, when suddenly all was defeated 
by the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg. 
This general had reached the fortress of Orsk, 
after a very painful march, on the 12th ofues 
April ; thence he set forwards towards Oriem- 
bourg, which he reached upon the 1st of June, 
having been joined on his route at various 
times during the month of May by the Kir- 
ghises and a corps of ten thousand Bashkirs. i 770 
From Oriembourg he sent forward his official 
offers to the Khan, which were harsh and 
peremptory, holding out no specific stipula- 
tion as to pardon or impunity, and exacting 
unconditional submission as the preliminary 1775 
price of any cessation from military operations. 



1766. Oriembourg, Orenburg, the capital «f a province of the same 
name The most westerly government in Asiatic Russia. 



76 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

The personal character of Traubenberg, which 
was anything but energetic, and the condition 

1780 of his army, disorganized* in a great measure 
by the length and severity of the march, made 
it probable that, with a little time for negoti- 
ation, a more conciliatory tone would have 
been assumed. But, unhappily for all parties, 

1785 sinister events occurred in the meantime, such 
as effectually put an end to every hope of the 
kind. 

The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg 
had reported to this officer that a distance of 

1790 on iy ten days' march lay between his own 
head-quarters and those of the Khan. Upon 
this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, by their 
Prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated 
the Russian general to advance without delay. 

1795 Once having placed his cannon in position, so 
as to command the Kalmuck camp, the fate of 
the rebel Khan and his people would be in his 
own hands, and they would themselves form 
his advanced guard. Traubenberg, however, 

i8oo [why has not been certainly explained), re- 
fused to march, grounding his refusal upon the 
condition of his army, and their absolute need 
of refreshment. Long and fierce was the 
altercation: but at length, seeing no chance 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 77 

of prevailing, and dreading above all other isos 
events the escape of their detested enemy, 
the ferocious Bashkirs went off in a body by 
forced marches. In six days they reached the 
Torgau, crossed by swimming their horses, and 
fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed isio 
for many a league in search of food or prov- 
ender for their camels. The first day's action 
was one vast succession of independent skir- 
mishes, diffused over a field of thirty to forty 
miles in extent ; one party often breaking up isi5 
into three or four, and again (according to the 
accidents of ground) three or four blending 
into one ; flight and pursuit, rescue and total 
overthrow, going on simultaneously, under all 
varieties of form, in all quarters of the plain. 1820 
The Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, 
by the scattered state of the Kalmucks, to 
split up into innumerable sections, and thus, 
for some hours, it had been impossible for the 
most practised eye to collect the general ten- 1825 
dency of the day's fortune. Both the Khan 
and Zebek-Dorchi were at one moment made 
prisoners, and more than once in imminent 
danger of being cut down; but at length 
Zebek succeeded in rallying a strong column 1830 
of infantry, which, with the support of the 



78 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

camel-corps on each flank, compelled the 
Bashkirs to retreat. Clouds, however, of these 
wild cavalry continued to arrive through the 

1835 next two days and nights, followed or accom- 
panied by the Khirgises. These being viewed 
as the advanced parties of Traubenberg's army, 
the Kalmuck chieftains saw no hope of safety 
but in flight, and in this way it happened that 

1840 a retreat, which had so recently been brought 
to a pause, was resumed at the very moment 
when the unhappy fugitives were anticipating 
a deep repose without further molestation the 
whole summer through. 

1845 It seemed as though every variety of wretch- 
edness were predestined to the Kalmucks, and 
as if their sufferings were incomplete, unless 
they were rounded and matured by all that the 
most dreadful agencies of summer's heat could 

1850 superadd to those of frost and winter. To this 
sequel of their story I shall immediately revert, 
after first noticing a little romantic episode 
which occurred at this point between Oubacha 
and his unprincipled cousin Zebek-Dorchi. 

1855 There was at the time of the Kalmuck flight 
from the Wolga a Russian gentleman of some 
rank at the court of the Khan, whom, for 
political reasons, it was thought necessary to 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 79 

carry along with them as a captive. For some 
weeks his confinement had been very strict, i«$o 
and in one or two instances cruel. But, as the 
increasing distance was constantly diminishing 
the chances of escape, and perhaps, also, as 
the misery of the guards gradually withdrew 
their attention from all minor interests to their 1865 
own personal sufferings, the vigilance of the 
custody grew more and more relaxed ; until 
at length, upon a petition to the Khan, Mr. 
Weseloff was formally restored to liberty, and 
it was understood that he might use his liberty \m 
in whatever way he chose, even for returning 
to Russia, if that should be his wish. Accord- 
ingly, he was making active preparations for 
his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred 
to Zebec-Dorchi that, not improbably, in someiszs 
of the battles which were then anticipated with 
Traubenberg, it might happen to them to lose 
some prisoner of rank, in which case the Rus- 
sian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands 
for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, 1880 
to his own severe affliction, the Russian was 
detained until the further pleasure of the Khan. 
The Khan's name, indeed, was used through 
the whole affair; but, as it seemed, with so 
little concurrence on his part, that, whenms 



80 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

Weseloff in a private audience humbly re- 
monstrated upon the injustice done him, and 
the cruelty of thus sporting with his feelings 
by setting him at liberty, and, as it were, 

1890 tempting him into dreams of home and re- 
stored happiness only for the purpose of 
blighting them, the good-natured prince dis- 
claimed all participation in the affair, and 
went so far in proving his sincerity as even 

1895 to give him permission to affect his escape; 
and, as a ready means of commencing it with- 
out raising suspicion, the Khan mentioned to 
Mr. Weseloff that he had just then received 
a message from the Hetman of the Bashkirs, 

1900 soliciting a private interview on the banks of 
the Torgau at a spot pointed out : that inter- 
view was arranged for the coming night, and 
Mr. Weseloff might go in the Khan's suite, 
which on either side was not to exceed three 

1905 persons. Weseloff was a prudent man, ac- 
quainted with the world, and he read treachery 
in the very outline of this scheme, as stated by 
the Khan — treachery against the Khan's per- 
son. He mused a little, and then communi- 

1910 cated so much of his suspicions to the Khan 
as might put him on his guard, but, upon 

iSgq. Hetman, commander. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 8 1 

further consideration, he begged leave to de- 
cline the honor of accompanying the Khan. 
The fact was, that three Kalmucks, who had 
strong motives for returning to their country- 1915 
men on the west bank of the Wolga, guessing 
the intentions of Weseloff, had offered to join 
him in his escape. These men the Khan would 
probably find himself obliged to countenance 
in their project, so that it became a point of 1920 
honor with Weseloff to conceal their intentions, 
and therefore to accomplish the evasion from 
the camp (of which the first steps only would 
be hazardous), without risking the notice of 
the Khan. 1925 

The district in which they were now en- 
camped abounded through many hundred 
miles with wild horses of a docile and 
beautiful breed. Each of the four fugitives 
had caught from seven to ten of these spirited 1930 
creatures in the course of the last few days : 
this raised no suspicion, for the rest of the 
Kalmucks had been making the same sort of 
provision against the coming toils of their 
remaining route to China. These horses were 1935 
secured by halters, and hidden about dusk in 
the thickets which lined the margin of the river. 
To these thickets, about ten at night, the four 



82 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

fugitives repaired; they took a circuitous path, 

1940 which drew them as little as possible within 
danger of challenge from any of the outposts or 
of the patrols which had been established on 
the quarters where the Bashkirs lay, and in 
three-quarters of an hour they reached the ren- 

i94sdezvous. The moon had now risen, the horses 
were unfastened, and they were in the act of 
mounting, when suddenly the deep silence of 
the woods was disturbed by a violent uproar, 
and the clashing of arms. Weseloff fancied that 

1950 he heard the voice of the Khan shouting for 
assistance. He remembered the communica- 
tion made by that prince in the morning, and 
requesting his companions to support him, he 
rode off in the direction of the sound. A very 

1955 short distance brought him to an open glade 
within the wood, where he beheld four men 
contending with a party of at least nine or ten. 
Two of the four were dismounted at the very 
instant of Weseloff's arrival ; one of these he 

i960 recognized almost certainly as the Khan, who 
was fighting hand to hand, but at great dis- 
advantage, with two of the adverse horsemen. 
Seeing that no time was to be lost, Weseloff 
fired and brought down one of the two. His 

1965 companions discharged their carbines at the 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 83 

same moment, and then all rushed simul- 
taneously into the little open area. The 
thundering sound of about thirty horses all 
rushing at once into a narrow space, gave the 
impression that a whole troop of cavalry was 1970 
coming down upon the assailants, who accord- 
ingly wheeled about and fled with one impulse. 
Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, 
who, as he expected, proved to be the Khan. 
The man whom Weseloff had shot was lying i 975 
dead ; and both were shocked, though Weseloff 
at least was not surprised, on stooping down 
and scrutinizing his features, to recognize a 
well-known confidential servant of Zebek-Dor- 
chi. Nothing was said by either party; theioso 
Khan rode off escorted by Weseloff and his 
companions, and for some time a dead silence 
prevailed. The situation of Weseloff was del- 
icate and critical ; to leave the Khan at this 
point was probably to cancel their recent ser-i 98 5 
vices, for he might be again crossed on his 
path, and again attacked by the very party 
from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, 
on the other hand, to return to the camp was 
to endanger the chances of accomplishing the 1990 
escape. The Khan also was apparently revolv- 
ing all this in his mind, for at length he broke 



84 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

silence, and said, " I comprehend your situa- 
tion, and under other circumstances I might 

1995 feel it my duty to detain your companions. 
But it would ill become me to do so after the 
important service you have just rendered me. 
Let us turn a little to the left. There, where 
you see the watch fire, is an outpost. Attend 

2000 me so far. I am then safe. You may turn 
and pursue your enterprise, for the circum- 
stances under which you will appear, as my 
escort, are sufficient to shield you from all 
suspicion for the present. I regret having no 

2005 better means at my disposal for testifying my 
gratitude. But tell me before we part — Was 
it accident only which led you to my rescue? 
Or had you acquired any knowledge of the 
plot by which I was decoyed into this snare?" 

2010 Weseloff answered very candidly that mere 
accident had brought him to the spot at which 
he heard the uproar, but that having heard it, 
and connecting it with the Khan's communica- 
tion of the morning, he had then designedly 

2015 gone after the sound in a way which he cer- 
tainly should not have done at so critical a 
moment, unless in the expectation of finding 
the Khan assaulted by assassins. A few min- 
utes after they reached the outpost at which 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 85 

it became safe to leave the Tartar chieftain, 2020 
and immediately the four fugitives commenced 
a flight which is perhaps without a parallel in 
the annals of traveling. Each of them led six 
or seven horses besides the one he rode, and 
by shifting from one to the other (like the 2025 
ancient Desultors of the Roman circus), so as 
never to burden the same horse for more than 
half an hour at a time, they continued to 
advance at the rate of 200 miles in the 24 
hours for three days consecutively. After 2030 
that time, conceiving themselves beyond pur- 
suit, they proceeded less rapidly, though still 
with a velocity which staggered the belief of 
Weseloff's friends in after years. He was, 
however, a man of high principle, and always 2035 
adhered firmly to the details of his printed 
report. One of the circumstances there stated 
is, that they continued to pursue the route by 
which the Kalmucks had fled, never for an 
instant rinding any difficulty in tracing it by 2 o4o 
the skeletons and other memorials of their 
calamities. In particular, he mentions vast 
heaps of money as part of the valuable prop- 



2026. Desultors, the most important and most ancient portion of the 
shows of the Roman circus consisted of chariot and horse races. Besides 
single horse races there were occasionally races in which one man rode two 
horses, vaultifigfrom one to the other — hence the name " Desultores." 



86 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

erty which it had been found necessary to 

2045 sacrifice. These heaps were found lying still 
untouched in the deserts. From these Wese- 
loff and his companions took as much as 
they could conveniently carry ; and this it 
was, with the price of their beautiful horses, 

2050 which they afterwards sold at one of the 
Russian military settlements for about ,£15 
apiece, which eventually enabled them to pur- 
sue their journey in Russia. This journey, as 
regarded Weseloff in particular, was closed by 

2055 a tragical catastrophe. He was at that time 
young, and the only child of a doating mother. 
Her affliction under the violent abduction of 
her son had been excessive, and probably had 
undermined her constitution. Still she had 

2 o(io supported it. Weseloff, giving way to the 
natural impulses of his filial affection, had 
imprudently posted through Russia to his 
mother's house without warning of his ap- 
proach. He rushed percipitately into her 

2065 presence ; and she, who had stood the shocks 
of sorrow, was found unequal to the shock of 
joy too sudden and too acute. She died upon 
the spot. 



I now revert to the final scenes of the Kal- 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 87 

muck flight. These it would be useless to 2070 
pursue circumstantially through the whole two 
thousand miles of suffering which remained, 
for the character of that suffering was even 
more monotonous than on the former half of 
the flight, and also more severe. Its main 2075 
elements were excessive heat, with the accom- 
paniments of famine and thirst, but aggravated 
at every step by the murderous attacks of 
their cruel enemies, the Bashkirs and the 
Kirghises. 2080 

These people, " more fell than anguish, 
hunger, or the sea," stuck to the unhappy 
Kalmucks like a swarm of enraged hornets. 
And very often, whilst they were attacking 
them in the rear, their advanced parties and2085 
flanks were attacked with almost equal fury 
by the people of the country which they were 
traversing; and with good reason, since the 
law of self-preservation had now obliged the 
fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions, and to 2090 
forage wherever they passed. In this respect 
their condition was a constant oscillation of 
wretchedness, for, sometimes, pressed by 
grinding famine, they took a circuit of per- 

2081. more fell, etc. The line is from Othello, v. 2. 316: — 

" O Spartan dog, 
More fell than anquish, hunger, or the sea! " 



88 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

2&95 haps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a 
land rich in the comforts of life ; but in such 
a land they were sure to find a crowded popu- 
lation, of which every arm was raised in unre- 
lenting hostility, with all the advantages of 

2100 local knowledge, and with constant preoccu- 
pation of all defensible positions, mountain 
passes or bridges. Sometimes, again, wearied 
out with this mode of suffering, they took a 
circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to 

2105 strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. 
But in such a land they were sure to meet 
absolute starvation. Then, again, whether with 
or without this plague of hostility in front, 
whatever might be the " fierce varieties " of 

2110 their misery in this respect, no rest ever came 
to their unhappy rear : post equitem sed atra 
cura; it was a torment like the undying worm 
of conscience. And, upon the whole, it pre- 
sented a spectacle altogether unprecedented in 

2n5 the history of mankind. Private and personal 
malignity is not unfrequently immortal, but 
rare indeed is it to find the same pertinacity 
of malice in a nation. And what embittered 

2iii. post equitem, etc. A quotati 
" Behind the horseman sits black Care " 

2ii2. undying worm. A Biblical expression. "Set St, Mark's Gospel, 
ix. 44, 46, 48. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 89 

the interest was, that the malice was reciprocal. 
Thus far the parties met upon equal terms ; 212 ° 
but that equality only sharpened the sense of 
their dire inequality as to other circumstances. 
The Bashkirs were ready to fight " from morn 
to dewy eve." The Kalmucks, on the con- 
trary, were always obliged to run; was it 2125 
from their enemies as creatures whom they 
feared? No; but towards their friends — 
towards that final haven of China — as what 
was hourly implored by the prayers of their 
wives and the tears of their children But, 2130 
though they fled unwillingly, too often they 
fled in vain — being unwillingly recalled. 
There lay the torment. Every day the Bash- 
kirs fell upon them ; every day the same 
unprofitable battle was renewed; as a matter 2135 
of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their 
advanced guard to fight them ; every day the 
battle raged for hours, and uniformly with 
the same result. For no sooner did the Bash- 
kirs find themselves too heavily pressed, and 2140 
that the Kalmuck march had been retarded by 
some hours, than they retired into the bound- 

2123. " from morn to dewy eve." Wrongly quoted from Milton's 
Paradise Lost, bk. i. 742, where it is described how Mulciber was thrown 
by angry Jove : — 

" Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn 
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve." 



90 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

less deserts, where all pursuit was hopeless. 
But, if the Kalmucks resolved to press for- 

2145 ward, regardless of their enemies, in that case 
their attacks became so fierce and overwhelm- 
ing that the general safety seemed likely to be 
brought into question ; nor could any effectual 
remedy be applied to the case, even for each 

2150 separate day, except by a most embarrassing 
halt, and by counter marches, that, to men in 
their circumstances, were almost worse than 
death. It will not be surprising that the irri- 
tation of such a systematic persecution, super- 

2165 added to a previous and hereditary hatred, 
and accompanied by the stinging conscious- 
ness of utter impotence as regarded all effectual 
vengeance, should gradually have inflamed the 
Kalmuck animosity into the wildest expres- 

2160 sion of downright madness and frenzy. 
Indeed, long before the frontiers of China 
were approached, the hostility of both sides 
had assumed the appearance much more of 
a warfare amongst wild beasts than amongst 

2165 creatures acknowledging the restraints of 
reason or the claims of a common nature. 
The spectacle became too atrocious ; it was 
that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of 
fiends. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 9 1 

On a fine morning in early autumn of the 2170 
year 1 77 1 , Kien Long, the Emperor of China, 
was pursuing his amusements in a wild frontier 
district lying on the outside of the Great Wall. 
For many hundred square leagues the country 
was desolate of inhabitants, but rich in woods 2175 
of ancient growth, and overrun with game of 
every description. In a central spot of this 
solitary region, the Emperor had built a gor- 
geous hunting lodge, to which he resorted 
annually for recreation and relief from the2iso 
cares of government. Led onwards in pursuit 
of game, he had rambled to a distance of 200 
miles or more from this lodge, followed at a 
little distance by a sufficient military escort, 
and every night pitching his tent in a different 21*5 
situation, until at length he had arrived on the 
very margin of the vast central deserts of 
Asia.* Here he was standing by accident at 
an opening of his pavilion, enjoying the morn- 

2171. Kien Long or Kien Loong. He succeeded his father, Yung 
Tching, as Emperor of Lhina, in 1735. He wrote some poetical pieces, 
and, when Lord Macartney went to China as Ambassador, gave him some 
of his verses to present to the King of England. He favored the mission- 
aries, and was in all respects a very amiable monarch. Born in 1709, he 
died in 1799, and was thus a contemporary of Gray, Collins, Goldsmith, 
and Cowper. 

* All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper upon the 
subject of this Kalmuck migration, drawn up in the Chinese language by 
the Emperor himself. Parts of this paper have been translated by the 
Jesuit missionaries. The Emperor states the whole motives oi his conduct 
and the chief incidents at great length. 



92 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

2190 ing sunshine, when suddenly to the westwards 
there arose a vast cloudy vapor, which by 
degrees expanded, mounted, and seemed to be 
slowly diffusing itself over the whole face of 
the heavens. By and by this vast sheet of 

2195 mist began to thicken towards the horizon, 
and to roll forward in billowy volumes. The 
Emperor's suite assembled from all quarters. 
The silver trumpets were sounded in the rear, 
and from all the glades and forest avenues 

2200 began to trot forward towards the pavilion the 
yagers — half cavalry, half huntsman — who 
composed the imperial escort. Conjecture 
was on the stretch to divine the cause of this 
phenomenon, and the interest continually 

2205 increased, in porportion as simple curiosity 
gradually deepened into the anxiety of uncer- 
tain danger. At first it had been imagined 
that some vast troops of deer, or other wild 
animals of the chase, had been disturbed in 

2210 their forest haunts by the Emperor's move- 
ments, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for 
prey, and might be fetching a compass by 
way of re-entering the forest grounds at some 
remoter points secure from molestation But 

2215 this conjecture was dissipated by the slow 

2201. yagers. German j age r , a hunter. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 93 

increase of the cloud, and the steadiness of its 
motion. In the course of two hours the vast 
phenomenon had advanced to a point which 
was judged to be within five miles of the spec- 
tators, though all calculations of distance were 2220 
difficult, and often fallacious, when applied 
to the endless expanses of the Tartar deserts. 
Through the next hour, during which the 
gentle morning breeze had a little freshened, 
the dust)' vapor had developed itself far and 2225 
wide into the appearance of huge aerial 
draperies, hanging in mighty volumes from 
the sky to the earth ; and at particular points, 
where the eddies of the breeze acted upon the 
pendulous skirts of these aerial curtains, rents 2230 
were perceived, sometimes taking the form of 
regular arches, portals, and windows, through 
which began dimly to gleam the heads of 
camels " indorsed" with human beings — and 
at intervals the moving of men and horses in 2235 
tumultuous array — and then through other 
openings or vistas at far distant points the 
flashing of polished arms. But sometimes, as 
the wind slackened or died away, all those 
openings, of whatever form, in the cloudy pall 2240 

2234. "indorsed." Obsolete and very rare. See Milton's Paradise 
Regained, bk. Ill - 329, describing the retreat ot Anthony fr^m Tarthia. 



94 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

would slowly close, and for a time the whole 
pageant was shut up from view ; although the 
growing din, the clamors, shrieks, and groans 
ascending from infuriated myriads, reported in 

2-245 a language not to be misunderstood, what was 
going on behind the cloudy screen. 

It was in fact the Kalmuck host, now in the 
last extremities of their exhaustion, and very 
fast approaching to that final stage of priva- 

22r»o tion and killing misery, beyond which few or 
none could have lived, but also, happily for 
themselves, fast approaching (in a literal 
sense) that final stage of their long pilgrim- 
age at which they would meet hospitality on a 

2255 scale of royal magnificence, and full protection 
from their enemies. These enemies, however, 
as yet, were still hanging on their rear as 
fiercely as ever, though this day was destined 
to be the last of their hideous persecution. 

2260 The Khan had, in fact, sent forward couriers 
with all the requisite statements and petitions 
addressed to the Emperor of China. These 
had been duly received, and preparations 
made in consequence to welcome the Kal- 

2265 mucks with the most paternal benevolence. 
But, as these couriers had been despatched 
from the Torgau at the moment of arrival 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 95 

thither, and before the advance of Traubenberg 
had made it necessary for the Khan to order a 
hasty renewal of the flight, the Emperor had 2270 
not looked for their arrival on his frontiers 
until full three months after the present time. 
The Kahn had, indeed, expressly notified his 
intention to pass the summer heats on the 
banks of the Torgau, and to recommence his 2275 
retreat about the middle of September. The 
subsequent change of plan being unknown to 
Kieh Long, left him for some time in doubt as 
to the true interpretation to be put upon this 
mighty apparition in the desert; but at length 22S0 
the savage clamors of hostile fury, and the 
clangor of weapons, unveiled to the Emperor 
the true nature of those unexpected calamities 
which had so prematurely precipitated the 
Kalmuck measures. 2285 

Apprehending the real state of affairs, the 
Emperor instantly perceived that the first act 
of his fatherly care for those erring children, 
(as he esteemed them), now returning to their 
ancient obedience, must be — to deliver them 2290 
from their pursuers. And this was less diffi- 
cult than might have been supposed. Not 
many miles in the rear was a body of well- 
appointed cavalry, with a strong detachment 



g6 revolt of the tartars. 

2295 of artillery, who always attended the Emperor's 
motions. These were hastily summoned. 
Meantime it occurred to the train of couriers 
that some danger might arise to the Emperor's 
person from the proximity of a lawless enemy ; 

2300 and accordingly he was induced to retire a 
little to the rear. It soon appeared, however, 
to those who watched the vapory shroud in 
the desert, that its motion was not such as 
would argue the direction of the march to be 

2305 exactly upon the pavilion, but rather in a 
diagonal line, making an angle of full 45 de- 
grees with that line in which the imperial 
cortege had been standing, and therefore with 
a distance continually increasing. Those who 

2310 knew the country judged that the Kalmucks 
were making for a large fresh-water lake about 
seven or eight miles distant; they were right: 
and to that point the imperial cavalry was 
ordered up, and it was precisely to that spot, 

2315 and about three hours after, and at noonday 
on the 8th of September, that the great 
Exodus of the Kalmuck Tartars was brought 
to a final close, and with a scene of such mem- 
orable and hellish fury as formed an appropri- 

2320 ate winding up to an expedition in all its parts 

2308 cortege (French), train of attendants. 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 97 

and details so awfully disastrous. The Em- 
peror was not personally present, or at least 
he saw whatever he did see from too great a 
distance to discriminate its individual features; 
but he records in his written memorial the 2325 
report made to him of this scene by some of 
his own officers. 

The lake of Tengis, near the dreadful desert 
of Kobi, lay in a hollow amongst hills of a 
moderate height, ranging generally from two 2330 
to three thousand feet high. About eleven 
o'clock in the forenoon, the Chinese cavalry 
reached the summit of a road which led 
through a cradle-like dip in the mountains 
right down upon the margin of the lake. 2335 
From the pass, elevated about two thousand 
feet above the level of the water, they con- 
tinued to descend by a very winding and 
difficult road, for an hour and a half; and 
during the whole of this descent they were 2340 
compelled to be inactive spectators of the 
fiendish spectacle below. The Kalmucks, re- 
duced by this time from about six hundred 
thousand souls to two hundred and sixty thou- 

2328. Tengis, now usually called Lake Balkash: Kobi, Gobi, or Cobi. 
A range of country in Central Asia, comprising a large part of Chinese 
Turkestan and Mongolia. It is 1300 miles long, with a varying breadth 
of from 400 to 800 miles. It is mostly a sandy desert, bounded by rocks 
and dotted here and there with oases. 



98 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

2345 sand, and after enduring for so long a time the 
miseries I have previously described — out- 
rageous heat, famine, and the destroying 
scimitar of the Khirgises and the Bashkirs, 
— had for the last ten days been traversing 

2350 a hideous desert, where no vestiges were seen 
of vegetation and no drop of water could be 
found. Camels and men were already so 
overladen that it was a mere impossibility 
that they should carry a tolerable sufficiency 

2355 for the passage of this frightful wilderness. 
On the eighth day, the wretched daily allow- 
ance, which had been continually diminishing, 
failed entirely ; and thus, for two days of 
insupportable fatigue, the horrors of thirst 

23cohad been carried to the fiercest extremity. 
Upon this last morning, at the sight of the 
hills and the forest scenery, which announced 
to those who acted as guides the neighborhood 
of the lake of Tengis, all the people rushed 

2365 along with maddening eagerness to the antici- 
pated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, 
the people more and more exhausted, and 
gradually, in the general rush forwards to the 
lake, all discipline and command were lost — 

2370 all attempts to preserve a rearguard were 
neglected — the wild Bashkirs rode in amongst 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 99 

the encumbered people and slaughtered them 
by wholesale, and almost without resistance. 
Screams and tumultuous shouts proclaimed 
the progress of the massacre, but none heeded 2.375 
— none halted ; all alike, pauper or noble, 
continued to rush on with maniacal haste to 
the waters — all with faces blackened by the 
heat preying upon the liver, and with tongue 
drooping from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir 2380 
was affected by the same misery, and mani- 
fested the same symptoms of his misery as the 
wretched Kalmuck ; the murderer was often- 
times in the same frantic misery as his mur- 
dered victim — many, indeed (an ordinary 23 ^ 
effect of thirst), in both nations had become 
lunatic, and in this state, whilst mere multitude 
and condensation of bodies alone opposed any 
check to the destroying scimitar and the tram- 
pling hoof, the lake was reached; and into 2390 
that the whole vast body of enemies together 
rushed, and together continued to rush, for- 
getful of all things at that moment but of one 
almighty instinct. This absorption of the 
thoughts in one maddening appetite lasted 2395 
for a single half-hour; but in the next arose 
the final scene of parting vengeance. Far and 
wide the waters of the solitary lake were 



IOO -REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

instantly dyed red with blood and gore ; here 

2400 rode a party of savage Bashkirs, hewing off 
heads as fast as the swathes fall before the 
mower's scythe ; there stood unarmed Kal- 
mucks in a death-grapple with their detested 
foes, both up to the middle in water, and 

2405 oftentimes both sinking together below the 
surface, from weakness or from struggles, and 
perishing in each other's arms. Did the Bash- 
kirs at any point collect into a cluster for the 
sake of giving impetus to the assault, thither 

2410 were the camels driven in fiercely by those 
who rode them, generally women or boys ; and 
even these quiet creatures were forced into a 
share in this carnival of murder, "by trampling 
down as many as they could strike prostrate 

2415 with the lash of their forelegs. Every moment 
the water grew more polluted, and yet every 
moment fresh myriads came up to the lake 
and rushed in, not able to resist their frantic 
thirst, and swallowing large draughts of water 

2420 visibly contaminated with the blood of their 
slaughtered compatriots. Wheresoever the 
lake was shallow enough to allow of men 
raising their heads above the water, there, for 
scores of acres, were to be seen all forms of 

2425 ghastly fear, of agonizing struggle, of spasm, 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. IOI 

of death and the fear of death — revenge, and 
the lunacy of revenge — until the neutral spec- 
tators, of whom there were not a few nov/ 
descending the eastern side of the lake, at 
length averted their eyes in horror. The 2430 
horror, which seemed incapable of further 
addition, was, however, increased by an unex- 
pected incident: the Bashkirs, beginning to 
perceive here and there the approach of the 
Chinese cavalry, felt it prudent — wheresoever 2435 
they were sufficiently at leisure from the pas- 
sions of the murderous scene — to gather into 
bodies. This was noticed by the governor of 
a small Chinese fort, built upon an eminence 
above the lake, and immediately he threw in a 2440 
broadside, which spread havoc amongst the 
Bashkir tribe. As often as the Bashkirs col- 
lected into "globes" and "turms" as their only 
means of meeting the long lines of descending 
Chinese cavalry — so often did the Chinese 2445 
governor of the fort pour in his exterminating 
broadside ; until at length the lake, at its lower 
end, became one vast seething caldron of 
human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese 

2 443- " globes " and " turms." By " globes " (Lat globi) are meant 
knots, bands, or bodies of men. Both Livy and Tacitus use the word in 
this sense. " Turms," troops, throngs. The Lat. turmee were squaurons 
of 30 men each Ten such " turms " formed the regular complement of 
300 men attached to each Roman legion. 



102 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

2450 cavalry had reached the foot of the hills: the 
Bashkirs, attentive to their movements, had 
formed ; skirmishes had been fought, and, 
with a quick sense that the contest was hence- 
forwards rapidly becoming hopeless, the Bash- 

2455 kirs and Kirghises began to retire. The pursuit 
was not as vigorous as the Kalmuck hatred 
would have desired. But, at the same time, 
the very gloomiest hatred could not but find 
in their own dreadful experience of the Asiatic 

2^60 deserts, and in the certainty that these wretched 
Bashkirs had to repeat that same experience a 
second time for thousands of miles, as the price 
exacted by a retributory Providence for their 
vindictive cruelty — not the very gloomiest of 

2465 the Kalmucks, or the least reflecting, but found 
in all this a retaliatory chastisement more 
complete and absolute than any which their 
swords and lances could have obtained, or 
human vengeance have devised. 



2470 Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wander- 
ings in the desert, for any subsequent marches 
which awaited them were neither long nor 
painful. Every possible alleviation and re- 
freshment for their exhausted bodies had 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 103 

been already provided by Kien Long with 2475 
the most princely munificence ; and lands of 
great fertility were immediately assigned to 
them in ample extent along the river Ily, not 
very far from the point at which they had first 
emerged from the wilderness of Kobi. But24so 
the beneficent attention of the Chinese Em- 
peror may be best stated in his own words, as 
translated into French by one of the Jesuit 
missionaries: — "La nation des Torgotes 
(savoir les Kalmuques) arriva a Ily, toute2485 
delabree, n'ayant ni de quoi vivre, ni de quoi 
se v£tir. Je l'avais prevu ; et j'avais ordonne 
de faire en tout genre les provisions necessaires 
pour pouvoir les secourir promptement: c'est 
ce qui a ete execute. On a fait la division des 2490 
terres ; et on a assigne a. chaque famille une 
portion suffisante pour pouvois servir a son 
entretien, soit en la cultivant, soit en y nour- 

2478. Ily, otherwise spelt " Ele." The chief town on this river is 
Gouldja, containing upwards of 50,000 inhabitants. The '" Ily" or " Ele " 
flows into Lake Tengis or Balkash. 

2484-25004. Translation: — 

" The nation of Torgotes to wit, the Kalmucks) arrived at Ily in a state 
of utter destitution, having neither food nor clothing. I had foreseen this, 
and had given command to make every kind of provision necessary to 
succor them promptly; this was done. The lands were divided, and to 
each family was given a portion sufficient to serve for its maintenance 
either by cultivation or by grazing cattle. To each private person mater- 
ials were given to clothe him, corn to feed him for the space of one year, 
household utensils and other necessarie-,, besides several ounces of silver 
to provide himself with what might have been forgotten. Particular places 
fertile in pasturage were given them, also oxen, sheep, etc., so that they 
might in process of time work by themselves for their own livelihood and 
welfare." 



104 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

issant des bestiaux. On a cionne a chaque 

2495 particulier des etoffes pour l'habiller, des 
grains pour se nourrir pendant l'espace d'une 
annee, des ustensiles pour le menage, et 
d'autres choses necessaires : et outre cela 
plusieurs onces d'argent, pour se pourvoir 

2500 de ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a designe 
des lieux particuliers, fertiles en p&turages ; 
et on leur a donne des boeufs, moutons, etc., 
pour qu'ils pussent dans la suite travailler par 
eux-m£mes a leur cntretien et a leur bien-etre." 

25C6 These are the words of the Emperor himself, 
speaking in his own person of his own parental 
cares ; but another Chinese, treating the same 
subject, records the munificence of this prince 
in terms which proclaim still more forcibly the 

2510 disinterested generosity which prompted, and 
the delicate considerateness which conducted 
this extensive bounty. He has been speaking 
of the Kalmucks, and he goes on thus : — 
" Lorsqu 'ils arriverent sur nos frontiere (au 

25i5 nombre de plusieurs centaines de mille, quoique 
la fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et toutes les 
autres incommodites inseparables d'une tres 
longue et tres penible route en eussent fait 
perir presque autant,) ils etaient reduits a la 

252oderniere misere ; ils manquaient de tout. II" 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 105 

[viz., l'Empereur, Kien Long] "leur. fit pre- 
parer des logemens conformes a leur mantere 
de vivre ; il leur fit distribuer des alimens et 
des habits; il leur fit donner des boeufs, des 
moutons, et des ustensiles, pour les mettre en 2525 
etat de former des troupeaux et de cultiver la 
terre, et tout cela a ses propres frais, qui se 
sont montes a des sommes immenses, sans 
compter l'argent qu'il a donne a chaque chef- 
de-famille, pour pourvoir a la subsistance de 2 53o 
sa femme et de ses enfans." 

Thus, after their memorable year of misery, 
the Kalmucks were replaced in territorial pos- 
sessions, and in comfort equal perhaps, or 
even superior, to that which they had enjoyed 2535 
in Russia, and with superior political advan- 
tages. But, if equal or superior, their condi- 
tion was no longer the same ; if not in degree, 
their social prosperity had altered in quality, 
for, instead of being a purely pastoral and 2540 

2514-2531. Translation: — 

" When they arrived upon our frontiers to the number of many hundred 
thousands, although extreme fatigue, hunger, thirst, and all the hardships 
inseparable from a very long and very painful journey had caused almost 
as many to perish, they were reduced to the utmost misery,) they were in 
need of everything. He (viz., the Emperor Kien Long) had caused to be 
prepared for them dwelling-places suited to their mode of living; he had 
food and clothing distributed among them; he gave them oxen, sheep, and 
utensils, to put them in the way of forming flocks and herds and cultivat- 
ing the land, and all that at his own expense, which amounted to immense 
sums, without reckoning the money thnt he gave to each head of a family 
to provide sustenance for his wife and children." 



106 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

vagrant people, they were now in circum- 
stances which obliged them to become essen- 
tially dependent upon agriculture ; and thus 
far raised in social rank, that, by the natural 

2545 course of their habits and the necessities of 
life, they were effectually reclaimed from 
roving and from the savage customs connected 
with a half nomadic life. They gained also in 
political privileges, chiefly through the im- 

255omunity from military service which their new 
relations enabled them to obtain. These were 
circumstances of advantage and gain. But 
one great disadvantage there was, amply to 
overbalance all other possible gain : the 

2555 chances were lost or were removed to an 
incalculable distance for their conversion to 
Christianity, without which, in these times, 
there is no absolute advance possible on the 
path of true civilization. 

2560 O ne word remains to be said upon the 
personal interests concerned in this great 
drama. The catastrophe in this respect was 
remarkable and complete. Oubacha, with all 
his goodness and incapacity of suspecting, 

2565 had, since the mysterious affair on the banks 
of the Torgau, felt his mind alienated from his 
cousin ; he revolted from the man that would 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. I07 

have murdered him, and he had displayed his 
caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in 
the bearing of Zebek-Dorchi, and a dis-2570 
pleasure which all his dissimulation could not 
hide. This had produced a feud, which, by 
keeping them aloof, had probably saved the 
life of Oubacha ; for the friendship of Zebek- 
Dorchi was more fatal than his open enmity. 2575 
After the settlement on the Ily this feud con- 
tinued to advance, until it came under the 
notice of the Emperor, on occasion of a visit 
which all the Tartar chieftains made to his 
Majesty at his hunting lodge in 1772. The258o 
Emperor informed himself accurately of all 
the particulars connected with the transac- 
tion — of all the rights and claims put for- 
ward — and of the way in which they would 
severally affect the interests of the Kalmuck 2585 
people. The consequence was that he adopted 
the cause of Oubacha, and repressed the pre- 
tensions of Zebek-Dorchi, who, on his part, 
so deeply resented this discountenance to his 
ambitious projects, that, in conjunction with 2590 
other chiefs, he had the presumption even to 
weave nets of treason against the Emperor 
himself. Plots were laid, were detected, were 
baffled ; counter-plots were constructed upon 



108 REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

2595 the same basis, and with the benefit of the 
opportunities thus offered. 

Finally, Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the 
imperial lodge, together with all his accom- 
plices, and under the skilful management of 

2600 the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's estab- 
lishment, the murderous artifices of these 
Tartar chieftains were made to recoil upon 
themselves ; and the whole of them perished 
by assassination at a great imperial banquet. 

2605 For the Chinese morality is exactly of that 

kind which approves in everything the lex 

talionis : — 

" Lex nee justior ulla est (as they think) 
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 

2610 So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and 
originator of the great Tartar Exodus. 
Oubacha, meantime, and his people, were 
gradually recovering from the effects of their 
misery, and repairing their losses. Peace and 

261 g prosperity, under the gentle rule of a fatherly 
. lord paramount, redawned upon the tribes : 

2606. lex talionis fLat.\ law of retaliation. Used to denote a mode of 
punishing crime by doing to the criminal the same hurt which he has done 
to his neighbor. 

2008 " Lex nee justior, etc." Translation — " Nor is any law more 
just than that by which the contriver of a murder perishes by his own 
artifice." Cf. Hamlet, ii. 4. 207. 

" 'Tis the sport to have the engineer 
Hoist with his own petar " 
See also the Bible — .Proverbs xxviii. 10). 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. IOQ 

their household lares, after so harsh a transla- 
tion to distant climes, found again a happy 
reinstatement in what had, in fact, been their 
primitive abodes: they found themselves 2620 
settled in quiet sylvan scenes, rich in all the 
luxuries of life, and endowed with the per'ect 
loveliness of Arcadian beauty. But from the 
hills of this favored land, and even from 
the level grounds as they approached its 2625 
western border, they still look out upon that 
fearful wilderness which once beheld a nation 
in agony — the utter extirpation of nearly half 
a 'million from amongst its numbers, and, for 
the remainder, a storm of misery so fierce, 26.30 
that in the end (as happened also at Athens 
during the Peloponnesian War, from a different 
form of misery) very many lost their memory: 
all records of their past life were wiped out as 
with a sponge — utterly erased and cancelled, 2635 
and many others lost their reason : some in a 
gentle form of pensive melancholy, some in 
a more restless form of feverish delirium and 
nervous agitation, and others in the fixed 



2617 lares. See Dictionary of Antiquities. Here used simply to 
mean " household gods," household possessions. 

2623. Arcadian, the centre of the Peloponnesus Greece). It is moun- 
tainous and finely wooded, The poets have repeatedly celebrated its 
beauties in verse. 



IIO REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. 

2640 forms of tempestuous mania, raving frenzy, or 
moping idiocy. Two great commemorative 
monuments arose in after years to mark the 
depth and permanence of the awe — the 
sacred and reverential grief with which all 

2645 persons looked back upon the dread calam- 
ities attached to the year of the tiger — of all 
who had either personally shared in those 
calamities, and had themselves drunk from 
' that cup of sorrow, or who had effectually 

2550 been made witnesses to their results, and 
associated with their relief — two great monu- 
ments ; one embodied in the religious solem- 
nity, enjoined by the Dalai-Lama, called in 
the Tartar language a Romanang — that is, 

2655 a national commemoration, with music the 
most rich and solemn, of all the souls who 
departed to the rest of Paradise from the 
affliction of the desert : this took place about 
six years after the arrival in China. Secondly, 

2660 another more durable and more commensurate 
to the scale of the calamity and to the gran- 
deur of this national Exodus, in the mighty 
columns of granite and brass, erected by the 
Emperor Kien Long, near the banks of the 

2665 Hy; these columns stand upon the very 
margin of the steppes, and they bear a short 



REVOLT OF THE TARTARS. Ill 

Put emphatic inscription* to the following 
l.ffect: — 

" By the will of God, 

Here, upon the brink of these deserts 

Which from this point begin and stretch away ; 

Pathless, treeless, waterless, 

For thousands of miles — and along the margins 

of many mighty nations, 
Rested from their labors and from great afflictions 

Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall ■ 

And by the favor of Kien Long, God's Lieutenant 

upon earth, 

The Ancient Children of the Wilderness — the Torgote Tartars 

— Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar, 

Wandering sheep who had strayed away . 

from the Celestial Empire in the year 1616, 

But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 

Into the fold of their forgiving shepherd. 

Hallowed be the spot forever, 

and ! 

Hallowed be the day — September 8, 1771 ! 
Amen." 

* This inscription has been slightly altered in one or two phrases, and 
particularly in adapting to the Christian era the Emperor's expressions for 
the year of the original Exodus from China and the retrogressive Exodus 
from Russia. With respect to the designation adopted for the Russian 
Emperor, either it is built upon some confusion between him and the 
Byzantine Caesars, as though the former, being of the same religion with 
the latter 'and occupying in part the same longitudes, though in different 
latitudes), might be considered as his modern successor; or else it lefers 
simply to the Greek form of Christianity professed by the Russian Emper- 
or and Church. 



FIVE CENT CLASSICS. 



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58. Lady of the Lake. Canto II. (Scott.) 
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38. The Tempest, etc. (Lamb.) 
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51. As You Like It. (Shakespeare.) 

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56. The Elegy, etc. (Gray.) 

59. Lady of the Lake. Canto III. 
65. Sir Roger De Coverley. 
80. Cotter's Saturday Night (Burns.) 
38. Sir Launfal. (Lowell.) 

in. The Prisoner of Chillon. (Byron.) 
f 12. Lady of the Lake. Canto IV. 

113. Lady of the Lake. Canto V. 

114. Lady of the Lake. Canto VI. 

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